Aerisday, Septis 18, Morning

The first thing I did when I entered our quad at the Academy of Harmony & Magic in Nivara Hall was to throw myself, then my cloak on the bed like it had personally offended me. It had. The walk from the gate to Goldspire had been long, the air too wet, and I was already tired of pretending to care about rules and routine again.

But mostly, I was mad.

We were all back, but Halven wasn’t. Everyone else had returned with bags and secrets and new hairstyles, and he’d just... vanished.

“Let’s check on Aster,” I said, flopping dramatically into the nearest chair. “Maybe her face will finally crack if we ask the right question.”

Shara gave me that look—half disapproval, half agreement. She knew I was right. We all did.

Halven’s disappearance wasn’t something you just shrugged off, especially not if you knew him like we did. The guy was calm to a fault, but he didn’t just leave. He didn’t leave Rielle. He didn’t leave Shara, his best friend. He didn’t leave the quad without telling me.

He wouldn’t have left me.

Our bro-squad was broken without him. I really wanted us to be the bro-quad, but it was just the three of us—myself, Elio, and now that missing-milk-face Halven. We went from a bro-triangle to two guys—what was that? A straight line?

Freaking fire and gods’ balls.

My heart hurt.

“We should go,” Shara said, in that soft-but-firm way she uses when she’s already made up her mind. “Rielle, would you want to? I mean, you and Halven were close once.”

Rielle didn’t answer right away, but she stood. That was enough.

We all had a special bond with the Air Fae. Who couldn’t admire a man who escaped the Galestone Wars as little more than a child?

Halven had the balls of the gods.

And I missed him.

The four of us, Garnexis, Shara, Rielle, and myself, crossed the tower hall to Halven’s quad—same stonework, same quiet arches—but the second we stepped inside, the temperature dropped.

Aster was there, posted by the window like she was made of marble and moonlight. Pale blue hair, skin like carved frost. Her arms were folded. Her mesmerizing violet eyes said nothing.

Of course she was stunning. Annoyingly so.

I leaned on the doorframe and raised an eyebrow. “Well, look who decided to keep the icicle throne warm while the rest of us were actually worried.”

She didn’t blink. “And look who decided to speak without thinking. Again.”

That old heat sparked to life in my chest. “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be calm and collected, you’re awfully quick with the frostbite.”

She rolled her eyes. “Forgive me if I’m not impressed by theatrics in leather and flame.”

Gods. It was so easy with her. Every word a spark waiting to ignite. Every look a provocation.

The spell was broken for a moment when Rielle nudged me from behind.

Whoops, didn’t mean to keep her out in the hall.

I moved inside but gave Aster a wide smile. Oh, come on. Just admit you missed me.”

“I missed the silence more.”

“Forgive me if I thought maybe you’d stopped pretending you didn’t care.”

“I care,” she said, voice smooth as the lake in early morning. “I just don’t shout about it like a Summer Fae with something to prove.”

Shara had slipped around us to go into Halven’s room. I barely noticed—too caught up in the sharp edge of Aster’s words, the chill in her voice that always made me want to shout louder, push harder, burn through that frost.

“Guys,” Shara said, and something in her voice cut through everything. “I found something.”

She held up a torn, water-damaged journal page.

We gathered around as she read. It was... messy. Panicked. Something about an Emberglyph. Voices. And then the line that made my spine go rigid: “Do not trust—”

Then just water damage. Like someone—something—had wanted to erase the rest.

The silence that followed felt colder than Aster’s stare. The page trembled in Shara’s hands.

“We should copy this,” Garnexis said. “Create one for all of us.”

Before anyone could respond, the door slammed open.

“Ardorion!”

I grinned. “Elio!”

My Stone Dragon friend, my straight-line buddy... Well that doesn’t sound too sexy, so just my buddy.

He bounded into the room like a thunderclap with legs, hair wild, eyes full of mischief, and arms wide enough to crush a dragon in a bear hug. He clapped a hand on my shoulder like we were still sparring on the dueling grounds.

“Missed you, flamebrain.”

“You too, rock skull.”

The tension in the room finally cracked.

Elio gave everyone a wide smile. “Hey, strangers.”

Then he filled us in—Lo had gone to the Spring Quadrant to check in with Halven’s adoptive parents. Still no word.

Aster finally spoke again, this time quieter, more brittle. “I brought this to Lady Isa. Told her it’s not natural, this disappearance.”

She looked at Shara and Rielle, then at me. “She brushed me off.”

Her voice didn’t break, but the air around her did. I saw it in her shoulders. Just for a second.

I had to stop everything within me from taking her into my arms then. She was hurting like the rest of us. She was just better at hiding it.

Which meant she would not welcome my hug.

Would she welcome my hand on her throat? A kiss to scorch her from the inside, melt all of that ice around her?

Nope, not thinking about that right now.

We all left after that, splitting off like pieces of a spell unraveling. Everyone pretending they had something better to do. I didn’t pretend.

I needed air. Real air.

And maybe... distance from frost and violet eyes and the kind of silence that doesn’t stay empty.

Aerisday, Septis 18, Afternoon

I didn’t go back to our quad. I left Goldspire before anyone could say anything else. Before I said anything I’d regret.

Which was a joke, because I already regretted plenty.

My boots hit the tower stairs hard. Down, down, out into the sharp air. I didn’t care where I was going, only that it was away from Aster. Away from her cold eyes and that unreadable expression when we found the page. Away from the way her lips had parted like she was about to say something honest.

I hated her.

I hated that I didn’t.

My heart was still hammering, but not from anger. Not just. Gods, what was wrong with me?

I headed toward Wintermere. The wind cut harder the closer I got to the lake, but I welcomed it. I needed cold. Something to battle the fire still crawling under my skin.

I stood at the frozen shoreline, breath curling in front of me. No one was around.

Good.

I lit my hands.

Flames roared up from my palms—twin bursts into the sky. They cracked through the silence and fizzled against the cold.

It didn’t help. Not really. But it felt good to burn something, even if it was just air.

I dropped my arms, exhaled through clenched teeth, and stared across the lake. Then I heard it—chittering. High, tinkling laughter. A whirl of motion in my peripheral vision.

Sprites.

Of course.

There were six of them today, maybe seven. A mix, as always. A little Air Sprite trailing breeze-curls behind her. A smoldering Fire Sprite who glowed orange and pulsed when she giggled. A Winter Sprite I’d seen before—drifty and scatterbrained. Even a mossy Earth Sprite, who looked like a walking patch of dandelions with legs too small for his own fluff.

I sighed.

“You again,” I muttered, but my voice came out softer than I meant.

How did the sprites all manage to get along even though they were from different elements and seasons?

That was the question.

If I could figure out the answer, maybe I could reach Aster. Maybe I could finally kiss her.

The Fire Sprite twirled in midair.

“Smoke-Butt,” I said, nodding at the wisp. “Still not allowed to deliver the Docilis’s letters, I see.”

The sprite spun twice and did a little curtsy while burning bright with flames.

Not a single student would get a letter with her fire.

I pointed to the Water Sprite. “Featherbrain. You're late for your own confusion.”

He spun upside down and nearly flew into a tree.

“Mmhmm. Knew it.”

I felt my jaw unclench.

I gestured to the mossy one. “Sparkleclaw.”

He made a sound like a hiccup.

“And you—Breeze Beast.” I pointed at a fluttery Air Sprite I didn’t recognize. “No stealing any of my things.”

Air Sprites were almost as terrible as Iron Dragons with shiny objects, stealing all they could find.

The group of sprites zipped in slow circles. A few of them chimed something back in sprite chatter—tiny flutters and gusty puffs, like leaf-laughter and matchlight whispers.

I didn’t know what they were saying. Sometimes I could make out words. I think they could speak my language—how else could they be trained as letter carriers and such—but they chose to speak their own language.

They hovered close, almost expectant.

Then I saw it.

A glint near the lake’s edge. Just past where the frost stopped. Something parchment-shaped, but wrong. Thicker. Ribbed edges. It shimmered strangely when the wind caught it—half paper, half metal. Burned around one side.

I stepped forward.

And immediately, the sprites darted in front of me.

“No,” I said, holding up a hand. “Seriously. Back off.”

They chittered. Not angrily. They sounded like they were trying to apologize. Or maybe lie.

I stepped closer. They darted again—swirling around the parchment, shielding it, like a nest of wind-blown protectors.

I swore. “This isn’t a game.”

Featherbrain zipped in a spiral. Smoke-Butt puffed sparks at me and spun in place.

Every time I reached for the thing, they yanked it away. Just out of reach. Laughing, sparkling, squeaking like this was all hilarious.

“Guys, come on—”

One of them dropped it low enough for me to catch a glimpse.

A glyph.

Burned into the metal-like sheet, faint but unmistakable.

An Emberglyph.

The same one from Halven’s journal page.

I sucked in a breath. The moment froze.

I didn’t have time to think. I dropped into a crouch, yanked my sketch scroll from my coat pocket, and drew it as fast as I could remember. The upside-down triangle. The mirrored curls. The tiny dot at the end.

They brought the burned parchment closer, and it hit me.

Fire magic.

This wasn’t just burned from a regular fire. It had been caused by magic. Not only that. Now that the signature was clear, I could feel it in the air.

I had missed it when I first arrived and spewed my own fire magic.

The sprites suddenly stole the metal-like parchment away again—and this time, they let it go completely.

It tumbled up on the wind and spun away, over the lake, out of sight.

I stood slowly.

The air around me still vibrated. Fire magic.

Not mine. But it left behind a signature—so familiar, like the aftertaste of lightning. Any elemental can feel magic in the air, sure. But only Fire Fae know when the flame is ours.

This wasn’t mine. And it wasn’t fresh.

Who had cast it?

Why here?

Why guard it?

The sprites had vanished.

I stared at the place where the parchment had been.

Then I stomped away, glyph sketch in hand and questions burning in my mind.

Who left that here?

And why the hell were the sprites protecting it?

Metisday, Septis 21

Classes started two days ago.

Which meant I was already behind on reading, already tired of sitting in tiny desks designed for Moon Fae posture, and already sick of pretending that I couldn’t hear Aster’s voice before she even entered the room. It was getting annoying how good I was at picking her out from a crowd.

I’d been trying to avoid her. I really had.

But you try walking around a tower that echoes every damn footstep and tell me how you’re supposed to avoid a Water Fae who floats into every hall like she owns the weather.

Every time I saw her, my chest lit up with something that wasn’t fire and wasn’t helpful. I spent half my classes pretending not to care and the other half staring at the sketch I made of that glyph from the lake.

It didn’t help.

None of it helped.

So when we all ended up back in the quad tonight—no one saying why, just showing up like we’d all heard the same invisible call—I wasn’t surprised. Just relieved I didn’t have to start the conversation.

I went first anyway.

“I found something,” I said. “At the lake.”

Their eyes turned to me.

“I needed air after that run-in with Aster,” I added. “Found a scrap of metal or parchment—couldn’t tell which. Looked like it had been burned by Fire magic. I could feel the magic. And it had an Emberglyph.”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch, arms crossed like I wasn’t still carrying heat in my spine. “I tried to grab it, but I wasn’t alone.”

Rielle’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“There were sprites. Wandering ones coming out of the Wintermere’s fog. I know they were trying to be playful, but I almost sparked a fire just to see them turn into steam.”

I really wouldn’t have done that. Hells, if they’d let me, I’d bring the cute little creatures back here and hide them in my room.

Shara furrowed her brow. Her hair grew, curling around her cheek. “Did they speak?”

I shook my head. I wish. “No. They just watched. Hovered around it. Every time I reached for the glyph, they yanked it away. I backed off and drew what I remembered.”

That’s when Garnexis let out a short, smug breath.

“That’s funny,” she said, “because I did grab it.”

We all looked at her. I raised an eyebrow, and of course, she grinned wider as she pulled the same metallic scrap from her cloak.

She told us how she’d found it, how she’d touched it to the lake, and how it had seared the glyph into her left wrist. She showed us the mark—faint now, but unmistakable. “It’s fading, but it wasn’t just a sting. It felt like a promise. Or a warning. Either way, it’s the same Emberglyph.”

She also told us how Orivian had shown up and tried to take it. How she wrestled it back.

There was something about her smile when she said that. Something smug. Something... blushing?

Before I could ask, Shara pressed both hands to her cheeks like she was trying to cool her face. “Oh, gods and goddesses, did you kiss Orivian?”

Garnexis crossed her arms, sliding the metal scrap back into her pocket. “I use any tools I have to get what I want.”

I snorted and said under my breath, “Figures.”

I wasn’t really upset at her tactic, though. Garnexis wasn’t afraid to break any rule to accomplish her goals. What I really felt was respect and pride for my friend.

Then Rielle spoke. Her voice was soft, but it carried. “I also found myself by the lake, but in my dreams. I had two of them. The first was of Halven, standing on the ice. He told me not to follow.”

She hesitated. We listened.

Her fingers curled slightly where they rested on her knees.

“The second dream was of someone else. A man I don’t know but I’ve dreamed of him before. This time he was writing the same sigil into the ground by the lake. When I asked him what it meant, he covered it. Then he... well you don’t have to know that part.”

Bright pink dotted her slate-blue skin.

Shara raised her eyebrows with surprise. “Did everyone except me kiss somebody in the first days of school?”

I gave a snort-laugh. “There’s no one I would kiss.”

You’re a dirty, dirty liar.

Garnexis burst into laughter. “You mean you wouldn’t survive the frosted kiss of the one woman you can’t have.”

They all laughed. I didn’t. My hair flared a bit at the edges. Just enough to betray me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered.

When the laughter faded, Rielle reached into her robe and pulled out a water-stained scrap of paper. “When I woke up from my second dream, I was in the kitchen. Sleepwalking. Again. While there, I wrote down the sigil while it was still fresh, but I spilled my drink across the paper.”

Even through the stain, we could all recognize it.

Same glyph. Same symbol.

Same damn mystery.

“Do you know what it means, Ardorion?” Rielle asked.

I held her gaze for a moment, then looked at the glyph again. I thought I knew it, but not enough to understand it’s significance. “The Gemina Flamma. The twin flames, but that’s just a guess. This is an older Emberglyph and not one we use today.”

“I know what it means,” Shara said, surprising all of us. She shrugged, trying to seem casual. “I found it in a book. You know, in that place they call a library.”

We stared at her.

“Well, keep us in suspense then,” Garnexis said, folding her arms.

Shara swallowed. “I mean, I have the literal translation, but I’m not sure what it actually means. The text says it means to split strength, ground your fire, and ignite the center.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

“And why would Halven—an Air Fae—be writing an Emberglyph over and over?” Garnexis asked.

We sat in silence for a long beat.

“Maybe it meant something to him,” I said, quieter than usual.

That’s when Shara reached into her journal and pulled out a spiral-shaped leaf. Turning the leaf over, she revealed another glyph.

They all looked at me and I shook my head. “I don’t know that one.”

Shara ran a finger over the glyph. “I think this has something to do with the Gemina Flamma but I couldn’t find it in any of the texts.”

Rielle tilted her head. “Where did you get that?”

Shara didn’t answer.

This was getting us nowhere. Just mysteries on top of more mysteries. How were we to find Halven like this?

“Does it matter if we don’t know what it means?” I asked, frustrated.

Rielle frowned at me, but I didn’t care.

“Maybe we can find out in our Runes and Sigils class,” Garnexis said. “Class is on Sylsday, right?”

I tapped my fingers against the table next to me. “I guess this is it then. We’re really doing this. We’re looking for Halven and not giving up like everyone else has.”

Rielle looked down at her sleeve. “Wouldn’t you want him to do the same for us?”

She misunderstood my frustration. I wanted nothing more than to find my buddy and become our bro-triangle again... maybe I should change that to bro-pyramid. I don’t know, but it was better than my bro-straight-line I had with Elio.

And we had to be careful. I had a feeling that whatever happened to Halven was not something good. Would the rest of my girl squad understand the gravity and still want to continue?

Girl squad? Where did that come from?

“Of course,” I said. “I don’t want to give up. But we’ve got classes. Exams. According to Aster, Lady Isa isn’t concerned. So if we screw this up... What if we disappear like he did?”

 Then we’d be the Gone Squad... the Gone Squad Quad... the Gone Squad Goldspire Quad...

Hells, I have to get off this loop.

“We just have to be smart,” Shara said. “And careful.”

Rielle sat straighter. “We should make a pact. No one investigates alone. No more secrets.”

“And if one of us goes missing?” Garnexis asked.

Then we start becoming the second Gone Squad, No More Quad like Elio, Aster, and Lo across the hall.

I didn’t want that for us. Real fear lodged in my throat.

“Then the rest of us will know why,” Shara said. “And we won’t stop until we bring them back.”

Yes! That’s my girl! Shara was almost as quiet as Rielle, but she was smart.

“A pact,” I said, holding out my hands.

One by one, we nodded and linked fingers—Wood, Metal, Moon, and Fire Fae.

Not bound by magic.

Just by choice.

And maybe that was stronger.

This sensitve information has been filed away under a separate location. If you find it, you can access the records with the passcode "cracktheice."

Septis 31

Several days had gone by without any new information for Halven. The first week of studies ended with the opening sessions of the Practical Duels & Spells Synthesis, two days of wild spells and wilder magical spectacles. The fourth-years had outdone themselves. Someone conjured a chain lightning whip that turned a shifting battlefield into a chaos maze. Another pair turned the air into mirror shards mid-duel, ricocheting spells between reflections.

It should’ve been inspiring. All it really did was remind me how far we still had to go.

And now the tea had gone cold. Again.

I leaned back against the arm of the couch, swirling what was left in my mug. Across from me, Rielle and Shara were elbow-deep in notes, half-legible scribbles, diagrams, probably some secret girl language in the margins. Shara twirled the spiral leaf in one hand.

Garnexis stood near the window, picking at the edge of her metal-stitched bracers, boots propped on a pile of magical history books that probably deserved more respect. But idly toying with her bracers was something she did when she was overthinking, and I completely understood why.

We were quiet tonight, which meant we were all thinking too loudly.

“So,” I said finally, setting the mug down, “Aster says the Water Fae had glyphs.”

Shara looked up first, her brow furrowed. “Yes, that’s what you told us.”

“I never heard of anything like that,” Garnexis said, skeptical as always.

“But what if there are other types of glyphs out there?” I asked.

“Why would that matter?” Shara asked. Then she stopped twirling her leaf, leaving the underside face up and showing us the glyph on the back.

The glyph I couldn’t find in any records of Emberglyphs.

On Slysday, we all had Runes and Sigils together. Normally, I’d be the first to pester Professor Ilham with a dozen questions and a smug grin. But after Isa cornered us in the library and gave her official “stop poking around where you shouldn’t” warning, not one of us brought up the other glyph. Not even me.

Rielle spoke without looking away from the leaf. “That glyph doesn’t match anything we’ve studied.”

“Uh-huh, exactly, and—” But before I could add my conclusion, Shara interrupted.

“The glyph could have been one of the Water Fae glyphs!”

I crossed my arms, just a little miffed I couldn’t be the one to state the idea, a possible lead for the first time in days since we started searching deeper into Halven’s disappearance and coming up with nothing.

Rielle touched the leaf’s edge. “We need to go back to the library.”

Shara sighed, but then paused like she’d remembered something. “The Fall Equinox celebration is soon. Less than a week before the Spiral of Seasons Dance.”

Rielle perked up. “Already? That came fast.”

Then her face fell. Was she remembering when she danced with Halven last year when they were dating?

We all had our own memories. Shara sneaking off with Halven to filch sweets from the Fall table. Rielle kissing Halven for the first time during the open dancing. Garnexis having a deep conversation with him when she refused to dance.

He had a way of showing up for people without making a thing of it.

And me?

Halven had used his Air magic to spin a dozen pastries through the air, and I lit the filling just enough to make them look like tiny bonfires. One dive-bombed a professor’s hat. They banned flaming desserts after that.

But worth it!

I smiled at the memory, but it faded when I thought of this year’s dance without my buddy.

Garnexis groaned quietly from across the room. “I love my season’s celebration but I could do without the dancing. Do I have to wear a dress again?”

Shara chuckled, but Rielle tilted her head toward me, voice light. “Who will you pair with for the open dance at the end, Ardorion?”

I raised my brows. “You’re assuming I’m planning to stay long enough to dance with anyone.”

Shara wagged a finger. “You better not leave without one of us, which means you’ll be staying a while.”

Right! We were not to be alone for fear our investigation would lead to one of us disappearing, too.

“I’ll skip out on the end dance with you,” Garnexis said.

My smile spread wide, and I pumped two hands over my chest to demonstrate the beating of my heart. “You are my true love, Garnexis.”

She gave me a dry smile and tsked as she moved away from the window to join us, sitting on the floor. She untied and tied again all the leather bindings of her bracers as if the ordered movement soothed her. “Do you really think going back to the library will be helpful? Aster said only oral stories were passed down about the glyphs they used.”

Shara turned a page and tapped it. “There has to be some record of about the Water Fae using glyphs. We’ll just have to dig deep for any reference. I’ll go with you tomorrow, Rielle.”

“Hurrah!” A pearlescent veil covered Rielle’s blue eyes then faded, a momentary lapse in her control of her magic.

“Great,” I muttered. “You two run off to the quiet corner of the stacks again. I guess someone needs to keep an eye on Garnexis before she tears the place apart.”

Garnexis didn’t look up. “I’m right here, Flameboy.”

I almost smiled at her name for me. Taking after me with the nicknames. I loved it! “I know. That’s why I’m volunteering.”

There was a moment of rare stillness before Shara spoke again. “Has anyone figured out anything else with Professor Tilwyn’s letter? Or that story? What was it?”

“‘Chaos’s Revenge for Sygilla,’” Rielle said.

“That’s the one.”

Now Garnexis looked up at Shara. “Orivian believed Halven was looking into Wintermere’s history so why was he reading that story?”

I shrugged, truly at a loss. “No idea what he was thinking. I read the story twice. It’s either a metaphor or a warning or both. And it’s old. Old like Professor Tilwyn. Which is saying something.”

Garnexis leaned forward, the candlelight catching on the metal band across her wrist. “But what if Halven reading it is the reason he disappeared? Orivian thinks it’s all related because the library was the last place he was seen.”

“The library?” Shara asked.

“I say we go back to the library. Just to look around. See what Halven might’ve left behind or see what happened to him.”

I sighed, exaggerated and theatrical. “Fine. Shara and Rielle will search scrolls and whispers, and I’ll babysit Garnexis while she glares at shelves.”

She smirked. “Try to keep up, hothead.”

As much as I dramatized everything, I really did love my quadmates. They were so much smarter than me, even if they never said it, but I still had to give them a hard time.

I flicked my fingers, a tiny harmless flame sparking in the air and disappearing just as fast. “Always do.” 

Septis 36

We’d been back to the library three times in the last five days.

Three times. Zero answers. Just more dead-end scrolls, dusty corners, and crumbling optimism. I also had a strong opinion about how badly the elemental theory wing needed reorganizing. I was starting to think Halven had vanished just to avoid second-year coursework.

“I swear if I have to read one more marginal note from a dead scholar who couldn’t diagram their own spell properly, I’m going to light the table on fire,” I muttered, mostly into the ancient wood grain of the reading table.

Across from me, Garnexis didn’t even look up. “If you set anything on fire, we’ll both be banned, and then I’ll have to explain to Rielle why she can’t check out her dream journals.”

I scowled and growled dramatically. “Tell her the sprites whispered something insulting. That’ll buy me sympathy.”

“You’re confusing sympathy with pity.”

“Only when I’m bored.” I leaned forward, dropping my arms onto the reading table. “And right now? I’m practically a tragic ballad.”

She sighed—long-suffering and theatrical, but not quite annoyed. Not yet. We’d agreed not to investigate anything related to Halven alone, which meant she was stuck with me, and I was stuck with my own frustration, echoing louder in the silence.

“Besides, you threaten that every time we’re here,” Garnexis said while reading her book, still more invested in it than me.

“Because every time we’re here, I mean it more.” I push my book away after slapping it closed. “I’m going to take a vow of silence and join the long dead Sky Monks if I have to sift through another dead-end treatise on elemental spell drift.”

Garnexis didn’t look up from her copy of Wards of Warding: A Practical Index, which had to be the most redundant title I’d ever seen.

“You wouldn’t have lasted one day with the Sky Monks,” she said.

I leaned back in the chair with a groan. “Because I’d start a fire?”

“Because you’d talk in your sleep.”

“Fair.”

We were in the library again—again—because of the pact. No investigating Halven-related mysteries alone. Which meant I was stuck dragging my feet next to Garnexis while she actually tried to find things. I’d gone through three journal collections, a poorly organized set of glyph pattern catalogs, and something that may or may not have been a coded love letter between two Winter scholars.

Nothing. Halven hadn’t left breadcrumbs. Just questions.

And because we’d already combed through every aisle of likely leads, we’d come back here, to the main floor, where the spiral in the center of the stone tiles shimmered like it always did. The magical swirl was a permanent fixture, part of the floor design, or so I thought. It had always been there. Glowy and decorative. Magical in a background noise sort of way.

I stood and wandered closer to it, watching the way the light curved in slow arcs of green and gold, like ink suspended in a pool that never spilled.

“I still don’t know what this thing is supposed to be,” I said.

“It’s a ward of some sort,” Garnexis said without glancing up. She flipped a page, boots propped on the edge of a shelf that probably hadn’t seen a student in a decade. “Probably.”

“Helpful.” I squatted beside it and reached toward the surface. “I mean, how do we even know it’s safe?”

“Ardorion.”

Too late. My fingertips skimmed the magic, pressing into the swirl.

It didn’t burn. It wasn’t cold. It didn’t resist. It felt like movement. Like touching wind inside a bubble.

And then the entire surface pulsed, just once. The glow shifted, deepened, and a ripple of golden script unfurled in the air above it.

Not spoken. Not written. Just there.

“Access denied. The portal stands sealed. Only the Firebird's Key may grant passage.”

I backed away slowly.

Garnexis was beside me in a heartbeat, eyes narrowed. “You ever hear of the library having a hidden portal in the floor?”

“Nope,” I said. “But I also didn’t think we’d find the words ‘Firebird key’ just floating in the air.”

“You touched it.”

“I was bored.”

“Well, congratulations. You unlocked something with fidgeting.”

I grinned. “It’s my best skill.”

She shook her head and crossed her arms. “So what now? We find a Firebird and beg it for a key?”

“Firebird,” I hummed tapping my chin. “That’s actually in the story. ‘Chaos’s Revenge for Sygilla.’ It said the Firebird is the key.”

She shook her head. “What does that even mean? Are we supposed to throw a Firebird at it?”

I snorted. “Maybe it opens when you feed it a bird feather.”

She looked around. “Halven was reading that story here, where he disappeared. And the story mentions the Firebird. Is it possible this is where he went?”

“Yeah, but how did he find the key?”

She looked down at the swirl, still glowing gently. “Maybe we throw the book at it.”

I was about to respond with something very clever when I caught a flicker of movement near the corner of the aisle.

Small. Silent. Black.

A cat.

She stepped into view like she was part of the floor plan, sleek fur catching the low lanternlight, eyes glowing gold. My mood, which had been circling the drain for hours, flipped completely.

“Ohhh hello,” I whispered, crouching down immediately. “Look at you, Little Queen, with those golden eyes. Where’ve you been hiding?”

The cat blinked slowly.

“She’s perfect,” I said. “We’re naming her Queenie.”

“Of course we are,” Garnexis said dryly.

“I love her.”

“She’s probably an illusion.”

“Let me believe.”

“She’ll eat your spell notes.”

“They’re useless anyway.”

I reached out, but the cat turned and padded away, tail flicking in slow, deliberate sways. After a few steps, she paused at the edge of the shelf and looked back at me, tail raising high like a signal. Not random. Not aimless. Then padded around the corner like she expected us to follow.

I stood and spoke, low and sure, “Garnexis, I think we’re supposed to follow the black cat.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re serious?”

“I’m never serious.”

“But you’re serious now.”

“Extremely.”

And without waiting, I followed. Because when the universe sends you a magical cat after whispering secrets through a floor portal, you follow it.

Plus, I would never admit it aloud for anyone, but I had a soft spot for small creatures.

Garnexis shadowed me as Queenie lipped out of the library, golden eyes flashing, and we weren’t about to let her vanish without a fight.

The sun was already low, throwing long shadows over the courtyard. The cold had sharpened since this morning. Garnexis had her arms folded tight, her steps sure and silent beside me.

Queenie stayed ahead of us, just far enough that I couldn’t tell if she was waiting or simply didn’t care.

We followed her around the edge of the library’s western wall, down past the stonework path toward the greenhouses.

Then she was gone.

One blink, one breath, and the space where she had been was just empty grass and creeping ivy.

“Did you see—?” I started.

Garnexis shrugged, frowning. “I don’t know.”

I turned in place, scanning the darkening edge of the building. Nothing. Just the sound of the wind and my own frustration rising.

Then I heard footsteps shuffling behind us.

Rielle appeared first, then Shara, out of breath but focused. They didn’t say anything, just came to a sudden stop beside us. Both were staring ahead.

Following the cat.

A black cat.

It was walking again, unbothered, tail high, golden eyes glowing faintly in the evening gloom.

“Queenie?” I asked.

Her tailed swished in response.

Shara looked between us. “You know this cat?”

“I thought I did but she disappeared. I named her Queenie.” I crouched in front of the cat. “Queenie, is that you?”

She yawned.

“If it is you, what are you trying to show us?”

The cat nodded, then turned to the greenhouses, walking away without waiting for us.

Whatever this was—cat or coincidence—we were clearly meant to follow.

It was strange, that last greenhouse. Built into the edge of the outer hall, half-covered by ivy, sealed with copper-runed glass and an overgrown canopy. No one even mentioned it in our campus tours. Most students just called it “that closed-off sunroom.”

But now I knew why.

The cat slipped through a narrow crack in the hedgerow next to the last greenhouse and padded across a trail I hadn’t seen before. We followed her through a short tunnel of thorns and stone, and then we were there.

A conservatory rose in front of us like a secret cathedral. I hadn’t known it was back here. Its glass panels were arched and ribbed in gold, and when we stepped inside, the heat hit us like a furnace wrapped in flowers.

Rielle gasped in the heat, and I felt sorry for her discomfort. This was very hot for someone from Winter. The air was also humid, like summer-warm, and heavy with a strange scent: scorched cedar and sun-warmed citrus. Around us, the room pulsed with low magical resonance. Plants grew wild here, glowing at the edges, their leaves bigger than they had any right to be.

Fire magic hummed in the air. Distinctive and ancient, something way more powerful than I had ever felt from my season and element.

And in the center, perched in a nest made of Ashwood, was a creature I had only ever seen in illustrations.

The Firebird.

I stopped breathing.

He was enormous. Wings tucked neatly against him, each feather flaring with the colors of dawn and flame, living flames. His body pulsed with light like heat shimmering off stone. His eyes—gods, his eyes—were molten gold and looking directly at us.

Nobody moved.

Not even the cat.

I had joked once about summoning a phoenix. This was not a phoenix. This was a god born of Fire and Chaos, something made of fire-song and impossible time.

When Garnexis whispered, “That’s him,” I didn’t answer.

I stepped forward. Just one step.

He didn’t speak. Not aloud. But his head tilted. Curious, regal, terrifying. Then he lifted one massive wing.

Several glowing feathers floated down like slow embers.

We watched them in awe. These tiny flaming embers shaped like feathers. No one moved.

That’s when his voice hit us.

It echoed inside my chest, across the inside of my skull.

Take them. You need to keep them sleeping.

The words rattled through my ribs like we were inside a cave that had waited a thousand years to be spoken into.

And then the Firebird tucked his wing again.

The day a god spoke to me.

But what did he mean? Were the feathers living entities because he said to take them and that we needed to keep them sleeping. For some reason, the ambiguous pronouns didn’t seem to be pointing to the same noun. So, if we were to take the feathers, who were we supposed to keep sleeping?

And why did the word them touch on another memory I couldn’t quite recall?

I dropped to one knee before I thought harder about it. I picked the feathers up, hands shaking slightly from something I didn’t want to name. After, I stood again, wondering if the Firebird would tell us what to do with the feathers.

But that was it.

The giant creature closed his eyes as if to sleep with no other explanations.

Just heat. And silence.

We backed out in a blur of unspoken panic and awe.

No one said a word until we were outside again, the cold biting harder after so much heat. It felt like the world had shifted slightly beneath our feet.

We were halfway back to Goldspire when Shara finally spoke.

“What are we supposed to do with them?”

Them.

So ambiguous.

Rielle added, quieter, “What did he mean... keep them sleeping?”

Shara threw her hands up. “Just more mysteries!”

My eyebrows raised with her outburst. Frustration was my domain, not hers.

She wiped her face as she said to me and Garnexis. “We might’ve found something, though.”

Rielle nodded. “We found the glyph from Veyn’s leaf in a hidden scroll. It’s called Theralen. It’s a Water Glyph.”

“It means ‘To release flow,’” Shara said, her voice hushed like she didn’t want to disturb anyone. “But it still doesn’t clear up any of these mysteries.”

I exhaled slowly, still holding the feathers tight against my chest. They continued to spark with flame but didn’t catch anything on fire. “I think I might know what to do. Maybe.”

I looked to Garnexis for help. They’d believe her no-nonsense words better than my explanation.

“There’s a portal,” she said. “In the library floor. And it asked for a Firebird key.”

Shara looked at us, wide-eyed. “You think the feathers are the key?”

Garnexis and I shared a glanced, but I answered this time, taking a deep breath before verbal vomiting all my thoughts. “Halven was researching in the library and read the story ‘Chaos’s Revenge for Sygilla’ which mentions the Firebird being the key. Then Halven went missing, last seen in the library, where there happens to be a portal that needs a Firebird key, which also happens to be where Queenie found me.”

Shara’s eyes widened. “Wow, you put all that together yourself?”

Instant heat rose up through me to shoot tiny flames out of my hair. “What does that mean?”

Her hand on my arm calmed me, and the others halted with us. “Not how you took it, Ardorion. What I mean is that all these little mysteries had become so convoluted, I couldn’t see where any of it connected, but you were able to. You’re amazing.”

My fire fizzled out, just leaving a warm spot in my heart.

“We should go to the library now. Try out the Firebird’s feather,” Garnexis said.

“The library’s closing,” Rielle said softly. “We don’t have time tonight.”

Everyone looked at me. I raised my hands, palms to the darkening sky. “Hey now, I didn’t call myself the genius, so why look at me?”

“I didn’t say you were a genius, loony-bird.” Shara bumped my arm with her shoulder. “But I’ll give it to you.”

I gave her my biggest smile.

“Tomorrow then,” Rielle said. “First light. Before the rest of the school is up.”

No one argued.

I looked down at the feathers again, still warm in my hands.

They didn’t feel like keys.

They felt like something sleeping beneath fire.

And we were about to knock on its door.

Due to the ceremonial nature of the Fall Equinox celebration, the following entry has been archived outside the primary log for preservation and discretion.

Relive the memory of that night by going back to the site of the dance and speak these magic words: Don’t Burn Alone

Octis 15

Gods, I hated sitting still. I was practically vibrating on the couch, my leg bouncing while Shara scribbled away at some dusty old scroll she’d nicked from the library. A Winter Record of Forgotten Water Glyphs.

Even the fire in the hearth was lazy tonight. Flickering soft. Barely warm. I hated that. Fire was supposed to move like it had something to prove. Maybe it was mirroring the mood in our quad’s common room, which was thick with Shara’s brainpower, and it was making me antsy. I needed to move, to fight, to do something.

Across the room, Rielle sat next to Shara, wrapped in that quiet way she always had, concerned, watching, probably overthinking. “Shara, please be careful. If they find out you took that…”

“I know,” Shara bit back, not even looking up. “But we need to know everything we can before they realize it's gone.”

I tuned them out, trying to stay still. Mostly because I was about to win an argument.

“I’m telling you, it’s going to be a practical,” I insisted, letting small flames dance over my knuckles. “The midterm for Elemental Fusion has to be. Something about offensive combinations.”

Garnexis didn’t even look at me. Just kept polishing that stupid bracer like it was her soul’s work. “You always think it’s about offense. It’s called fusion, flamebrain, not annihilation. It’ll be about structure. Theory.”

“The professor said pairs have to be from different seasons to work on the midterm. Does that not suggest to you something that is going to be practical?” I flared a bit of heat into my fingertips for emphasis. “We should practice early. Midterms are only twelve days away.”

She rolled her eyes like she’d invented it. “We don’t even know what the assignment is yet. Calm down.”

My hair flared up. “I just don’t want to fail.”

She sighed, but there was a softness in it. “You won't fail with me as your partner.”

The fire in my chest settled instantly, warmth spreading through me that had nothing to do with my magic. “You’ll be my partner?”

She gave a small, secret smile. “There’s no one else I’d want to work with.”

“Good,” I huffed, feeling better, glad I shared the class with her. “My fire, your metal. We’ll build the most offensively structured thing the professor has ever seen.”

I meant it. Together with any of my Quad Squad, I couldn’t fail, and Garnexis was quickly becoming my favorite. She was sharp, solid, predictable in the best way. I needed that. Especially now when everything else was chaos disguised as mystery. Still, that didn’t mean I wasn’t restless.

Rielle’s voice, soft and hesitant, broke through my triumphant mood. “We should talk again about the tunnels. About what we found down there.”

“We’ve talked it to death,” Garnexis said, her voice flat. “The Seal’s door is locked. And we each saw something different in that mirror inside the Docilis Vault. End of story.”

Yeah. The damn mirror. My jaw tensed.

Rielle shook her head, her voice insistent. “I don’t think we’re talking about the right thing or asking the right questions. None of us has asked if all it takes to enter that room and see visions is to put in our Docilis ID number, then anybody with our numbers could go in there and pull up visions about us or somehow related to us. So, who else is going there? Who knows things about us that we don't even know?”

“We did find that map on the ground that someone drew,” Garnexis added. “But when had it been dropped there?”

“If it was recent, then who was just there?” Rielle asked, and the spark in her voice told me she wasn’t letting go of this one.

I stretched again, yawning up at the ceiling and leaning my head back against the wall. This was all talk. “I mean, think about it, who has ever seen anyone going through that portal?”

Shara cut in sharp. “They don't have to go through the portal during the library's open hours. Not if they're faculty.”

Garnexis frowned. “Then are we saying that the faculty are spying on us?”

“Who knows what we are saying?” Shara snapped. “It seems like the more we learn the less we know.”

“It’s not fair,” I said, without even realizing the words had slipped out.

Garnexis smacked my stomach with the back of her hand.

I jerked forward, shocked. “What was that for?”

“We’re not in your head so you need to explain what you mean.” She crossed her arms. “And don’t look so hurt, you’ve got abs of pure steel, no give.”

Okay. That almost made me laugh.

“It’s not fair that you all saw someone you knew,” I said, trying to focus. “Halven, Master Thalric, Neir. I got some strange woman spouting riddles. It was completely senseless.”

But that wasn’t true. Not really. Her words had stuck in my bones.

Fire remembers the shape of the spell. Water remembers the feeling. Together, they remember the truth.

She wasn’t someone I knew. But the fire she created was familiar. It all felt important, but what was I supposed to do with it? It was a riddle wrapped in a firestorm, and it left me feeling more lost than ever.

Shara looked up, her quill hovering over her notes. “Your vision might be the most important, Ardorion.”

Huh?

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“You said the Fire Fae woman in your vision spoke about fire remembering the shape of a spell, and water remembering the feeling. Together, they remember truth.” Shara tapped the scroll. “Ayzella wrote that the Water Glyphs are shapes of feeling. Water has memory.”

The whole room stilled. Everyone looked at her like she’d just opened the door to something big. I tried to make the pieces fit, but they just felt like ash in my hands.

“Well, that explains everything,” I said, throwing my hands up. I wasn’t even mad. I just wanted one thing to make sense.

“You’re the one connecting things, Shara,” Garnexis said. “But you have to see that the rest of us have no idea what you’re understanding.”

I groaned again, louder this time. “It means I got a vision that should have gone to Shara.”

She went quiet again, scribbling something onto the scroll, and the rest of us just sat there. I swear, sometimes I think Shara’s brain works on a completely different level than the rest of ours.

“I feel sorry for her,” she murmured. “She loved him, this Mizunomi man. But she was going to leave him anyway, for her duty.”

Who? Ayzella, the Moon Fae in the scroll?

Rielle’s voice was soft. “Even six hundred years ago, there were not many Moon Fae left. Duty is a heavy thing to carry. I understand her choice.”

Duty. Another thing I didn’t understand.

They spoke of duty like it was some heavy, honorable chain. Something that made you walk away from people you cared about for the sake of… what? A bloodline? An old promise made by ghosts?

It was a type of logic my fire couldn't burn through; it made no sense. My path was simple. My duty wasn’t to a crown or to a tradition. It was to the people in this room. To finding Halven.

Then Shara was on her feet, her eyes blazing. “Listen, everyone! Ayzella wrote about another glyph called Nivareth, meaning ‘Bound reflection.’ She says this glyph is both Water and Fire, writing: ‘I am sure of it. I’ve seen it burn in steam and settle in frost. It belongs to both, and neither. I do not know if it is a union or a farewell. But I know it is mine. I gave it to the Mizunomi.’”

I felt a headache well on its way.

Garnexis held up a hand. “Enlighten us, Shara. What does any of that mean?”

Shara showed us the scroll. The glyph next to the entry matched the Gemina Flamma exactly. The same one from the door. The same one we’ve seen everywhere. We all crowded in, our voices a mess of confusion.

“That’s the Emberglyph,” I breathed.

“Nivareth,” Rielle whispered.

“Bound reflection,” Garnexis echoed.

“It’s a Water Glyph, too?” I asked, my mind racing.

Then the room dropped a few degrees. The fire in the hearth dimmed to a sulk. A familiar chill ran down my spine, and a scent hit me—the edge of summer and seawater, a smell that was uniquely hers. I knew it was her before I even looked. I could always smell her, even in a crowd.

My head whipped toward the door. And there she was.

Aster.

She stood in the doorway, arms crossed, violet eyes taking in the room. Her hair moved like it wasn’t bound by gravity, fluid and circling slow like a whirlpool. Her presence pulled the air itself inward.

The word duty came back to me.

A Fire Fae’s duty would always be to his people, to fall in love with his own kind. More of that duty I didn’t understand, because looking at this beautiful Water Fae told me she was the only duty I would ever need. Besides my friends that is.

It was what she did to me.

The fire inside me, the restless, angry thing that always needed something to prove, went still in that presence of hers. Everything in me wanted to go to her, to touch her, to feel that cool calm seep into my skin and silence the noise in my head.

“Nivareth has another meaning,” she said, her voice like iced velvet as she glided into the room. Each step stole my breath. She stopped beside us, her violet eyes on the scroll. “An older Water Fae story speaks of heartbreak and healing. ‘Balance the halves. Pour stillness downward. Release the frozen heart.’”

Her mesmerizing gaze rose to mine, and that thing that always ran too hot inside of me, that thing always trying to be more, she made that thing shut up. How did she settle me like that?

“Just more mysteries,” Shara sighed.

Rielle turned to Aster, stealing her gaze away from me. “Have you ever been taught that water has memory?”

Aster shook her head. “It’s a children’s story. A folk tale. Nothing to be taken seriously.” She looked at the scroll like she wanted to memorize every word. “I’d like to read this—”

“No one else will read that scroll!”

We all jumped. The librarian from the Shadow Index stood in the doorway, eyes sharp. She lifted a hand, and the scroll zipped away from Shara, rolled itself up midair, and vanished into the librarian’s palm.

“Do not,” she commanded, “borrow from my library again.” Then she disappeared.

Aster’s visceral disappointment struck me like a vise, stealing my breath. I don’t care what the librarian said. I would steal that scroll again. For Aster.

“Gods and goddesses,” Shara said. “We’re back to nothing.”

Shara’s words brought me back to our missing friend, and that fire was back in my gut.

“We’ve learned nothing anyways,” I growled, starting to pace, restless energy back in full force.

“Maybe not nothing,” Garnexis said. “Perhaps it’s like we’ve been learning in our Elemental Fusion class. Maybe we need to fuse Fire and Water together.”

I stopped, looking at Garnexis. “We don’t know how to do that. It’s not something we’ve learned yet.”

“It was just an idea,” she grumbled.

Rielle smiled, always the calm one. “The theory is sound. What if it’s not a fusion but just a pairing? Water and Fire magic used together to open the Seal?”

My gaze locked with Aster’s. A slow, hot grin spread across my face. “Looks like you’ll finally be able to join us with your contributions, icicle.”

The grin she returned melted me. I swear I forgot every word in existence.

“If Aster is helping,” Garnexis cut in, arms crossing, “then Orivian is, too. We have been sharing information anyway.”

I didn’t hear her. All I saw was Aster, and the way her eyes held mine, a silent challenge passing between us.

Rielle’s voice was a distant murmur. “Orivian is a lovely person. I think that is a wonderful idea.”

The frustration and despair in the room seeped away, replaced by a fragile, thrilling spark of hope. We had a plan. We had a direction. And I had her.

Shara’s voice cut through the haze. “Then let’s go to the tunnels.”

Yes, I thought, my eyes still on Aster. Let’s go.

Octis 23

Gods, I hated those tunnels beneath the library. The cold seeped through my robes, a damp, unnatural chill wrapping around my legs like an unwanted guest. The kind of cold that crept through clothes, clung to the edges of your bones, and whispered that maybe you didn’t belong here. And for someone like me—Fire-born, Summer-blooded—it felt like the world’s most unfunny joke.

Of course our great mystery-solving adventure had to be in a glorified meat locker.

Still, I ignored it. I had to. Especially now.

It had been a week of wasted time waiting to get back here, a week of the library crawling with panicked students studying for midterms, and now the five of us, myself, Shara, Rielle, Garnexis, and Aster, stood before the damned door in that miserable, frozen hallway.

It was time to get this over with. I stepped forward, catching Aster’s eye as she shadowed just to my right.

My nerves danced, not from the cold or discomfort. From memory. Every kiss I’d stolen from Aster.

Over the last week of her hanging around our quad, I’d kissed her more times than I could count. It wasn't like kissing other girls, Summer Fae girls, whose breath mingled hot with my own. Every kiss with Aster was a battle, my fire clashing with her frost, a dance of opposing forces I never wanted to end. A battle I didn’t want to win; a dance I never wanted to end.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to shrug off the shiver skimming my spine as I stepped forward and sparked flame to life between my fingers.

“Alright, icicle. I’ll lead. Watch closely.” I raised my hands, fire blooming. “The Emberglyph means to split strength, ground your fire, ignite the center.”

My focus narrowed. The spell I needed came without effort, instinct honed through constant practice, a whisper from my ancestors in the back of my mind. Fire was an extension of me. I didn't have to think, just act.

My voice dropped, low and focused. “I start on the outside, where the magic is split until reaching the middle.”

My skin shifted. Veins ignited in curling flame, webbing over dark flesh like lava over stone. Obsidian cracked across my arms and chest as I began the spell.

Flames spouted from me, tracing the outer spirals of the glyph in bold strokes. Heat kissed the stone, curling against the door.

The more of myself I poured into the spell, the hungrier my flames as they lashed out from my hair. Fiery veins pulsed across my dark skin, the familiar crackle of my magic a comforting sound.

When I curved the spell down, spiraling through the triangle and into the bottom circle, my attention fell to Aster.

“I think I have it,” she said, her voice a calm river in my inferno. “Nivareth translates to balance the halves, pour stillness downward, and release the frozen heart.”

She stepped in beside me.

Her magic was nothing like mine. Where mine blazed, hers pooled. Violet eyes swirled to life, hypnotic pools of color shot through with gold. A soft lavender glow gathered around her hand, soft and slow like dusk after snowfall. Gods, she was magnificent.

“I must also split my magic like yours.”

The glow expanded, rippling over her, waves of gold moving through the lavender light. Her hair became a cascade of liquid water, splashing silently to the ground in long, glacial rivulets, and something in my chest went tight.

All I knew then was that I wanted to always call her mine, to let her water tame my fire.

Just like her water deliberating wrapped around my flames now without extinguishing them. She didn’t fight the fire. She danced with it. Every line of the glyph mirrored mine, her water curving around my flame like she knew exactly where I’d move before I moved there.

Magic poured off her like breath, like calm. Like control. Her stillness drew me in, soothed every piece of me too hot, too angry, too loud.

“Bound reflection,” Shara murmured behind us.

Yes, we were bound in this magical reflection, and so much more.

“The Mizunomi’s translation,” Shara said. “Ayzella wrote that Nivareth means bound reflection. She said it belongs to Water and Fire. Both, but neither. This—” she gestured toward Aster and me “—this is them reflecting each other. Bound movements.”

I glanced at Aster wondering if she felt as complete in this as I did. Her smile echoed mine, and my heart nearly stopped.

We hadn’t practiced this. We hadn’t needed to. We just... fit.

The air snapped between us as fire and water met, lacing together tighter. Steam burst. For a moment, it was a fight, a raw struggle for dominance. Then she cooled her flow, and our power twined together, a perfect, shimmering braid of orange and violet.

The glyph pulsed.

Click.

The door groaned open.

I grinned. I hadn't been sure it would actually work. A blast of frigid air rolled out. Of course, more cold.

I muttered something mentally about frostbite and misery, but I kept it to myself. Pride wouldn’t let me flinch. Not in front of them. I was going in first, no question.

I stepped through the mist, heart hammering against the sudden swell of power inside the chamber. The magic here was thick, the kind that prickled your skin and warned you to shut up and pay attention.

Aster slipped in behind me. Garnexis followed. Shara and Rielle brought up the rear.

As I moved farther in, the density of the magic made my stomach clench. This wasn’t just one kind. It was a tangle. Layers and layers of it. I could taste Fire. Definitely Fire. But it didn’t belong to anyone I recognized.

I snapped my fingers. Fire leapt to several candles on a desk, then two wall torches. The room illuminated in a wave of flame.

And there he was.

Halven.

My breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs. He was frozen, trapped in ice. Fear locked into every muscle in his body, his hand outstretched against one full wall of ice, his mouth barely open like he was about to speak.

The fire that was a part of me roared to life in my hands, a blaze of pure, helpless rage. He was my friend, my brother. My bro-triangle was broken because I hadn’t been here. I should have been here. This was my fault.

“He’s alive.”

Shara’s words cut through my fury. The flames in my hands died down, sputtering into nothing.

Gasps hit from behind me. Garnexis. “What?”

“How is that possible?” I stared, the question falling out of me before I could stop it.

“I don’t know,” Shara said.

I didn’t even notice Rielle was frozen in place until then. She looked shattered.

Aster moved to the ice. Garnexis veered toward the desk. But I couldn’t move. Not until hope burst through the weight in my chest. He was alive. It was just ice. I could fix this.

“I’ll get him out.” Fire exploded in my palms again, ready to melt his prison away.

“Wait,” Shara blocked me. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Releasing him could kill him.”

My voice broke. “For the love of the gods above and below! I can’t just leave him in there!”

I dropped my hands, flames fizzling.

Shara went to Rielle, then. The Moon Fae looked like a ghost. Gently, Shara lay hands on her shoulders. I turned to Aster instead.

She stood at the ice, her glow returned, arms raised in concentration. Her power flowed slowly threading into the wall of ice. Every line of her posture broadcast control.

The sight of her, so calm and focused, was the only thing keeping me from blasting that Halven’s block of ice to steam. I needed her cool presence, her soothing calm. I needed her.

I didn’t even know when it had happened, this need. Her presence calmed the fire in me, not by smothering it, but by anchoring it. She was my opposite, the one who challenged me, who could handle my fire and not get burned. She saw the fear beneath my anger, the loyalty beneath my bravado. She saw me.

Tangled together last night, I’d told her that. Maybe not in so many words. Then she whispered to me that she didn’t want to feel this much, that feeling so deeply was terrifying. Her care for me, her love for Halven, her anger at the faculty, it all swirled inside her. She hid it behind frost, but it was there.

But she’d been right. Halven hadn’t left. He’d been here the whole time.

The magic in the ice wall called to me, whispering its own energy. Fire stirred in my core. I expanded my awareness and opened to the flow of it. Fire. Inside the wall. Old. Powerful. Slightly familiar, a signature close the Firebird, but not his.

What the hells did it mean?

“Who did this to him?” Rielle’s raw whisper pulled me back.

“I have a pretty good idea who or what.” Garnexis held up a brittle old newssheet.

We gathered near the desk as Garnexis read. “Year six-thirty-nine.”

“The Moon Fae Massacre,” Rielle said, voice breaking. “It’s the same year. The year most of the Moon Fae clans were wiped out during the Summer Fae Wars.”

A sick feeling churned in my stomach.

I didn’t know those wars. I was born in Nythral, a place of peace, but the history of my race was written in blood and ash. That war belonged to my people. It wasn’t a history I was proud of.

I glanced away.

Garnexis kept reading. “Students at the academy have reported hearing voices… the infirmary is full… by order of Lady Isamore, the academy will be shut down…”

Voices.

“Voices?” My head snapped up. “Didn’t Halven mention voices in the journal page under his bed?”

Aster stepped back from the wall. “This is Wintermere. Halven said in the journal page he heard the voices and he went to Wintermere.”

That tracked. The ice, the location. We were underground, all looking at part of the frozen lake which surrounded Nivara Hall.

“There’s Moon magic in the ice,” Rielle added.

“There’s a lot of magic,” Aster said. “I feel two signatures of Water magic. One of them is Lady Isa’s.”

I stared at the wall. So Lady Isa’s magic was here too.

Shara jumped in. “Maybe that makes sense? Lady Isa founded Nythral. She was part of whatever was done with the magic here to make it safe for us. Maybe the lake is part of the magic. But have you felt her magic in Wintermere before?”

Both Rielle and Aster shook their heads.

Aster looked to the ice. “From the surface there’s not even any residue, and with how old and powerful the second signature of Water magic is, I would have expected to feel something. It’s like it’s purposefully being masked, hidden from us. But why?”

“Well, I hate to break it to you all, but I have more to add to the mystery.” I gave a small smile. “There’s Fire magic, too. In the ice. Kind of like the Firebird. Not exactly. Similar, though.”

Shara moved forward and placed her hand on the wall, magic curling outward from the copper aura around her fingers.

I frowned. I didn’t need to touch the ice to feel the Fire magic. They did, though. I could feel the Fire from here. Maybe I’m just more powerful? I’d never admit it aloud, but maybe I was just better at this than they were. Not that it was a competition. But if it was? I was winning.

Then, “Garnexis? Any Metal magic in the room or in the lake?”

“None.”

“So, there’s powerful Water, Moon, and Fire magic inside the lake itself,” Shara said. “None of us have felt it above ground.”

“Lady Isa’s magic is also part of what encases Halven,” Aster said. “The only Water magic. But there’s another magic mixed in. Not Water.”

“Veyn,” Shara said. “There’s Wood magic in the ice around Halven. Somehow, Veyn is part of the spell. I don’t know what it’s meant to do.”

I looked toward Garnexis. Her fingers gripped the desk. I wanted to say something. To reassure her.

She’d told me once, after Halven disappeared, that she’d had the urge to run again. The same gut-deep fear she got whenever things turned against her. She and her mother never stayed anywhere long. Not when people found out who she was.

I wanted to say, You belong here. But I didn’t know if she’d believe me. So I said nothing.

“Lady Isa knew where Halven was this whole time,” Shara said. “She told us to stop looking because she trapped him here. So the question is, why? And is Veyn helping her, or is he trying to help Halven?”

“Why was Halven even here?” Rielle asked.

Garnexis answered. “The voices.”

“He followed them,” Shara said. “Same as before when he followed them to Wintermere. This must be where he came at the end when his spells didn’t work above ground.”

I thought back to the burned glyph Garnexis and I had found at the shore of Wintermere. The same glyph Halven had written into his journal over and over.

Rielle gasped, her gaze on the newssheet. “Turn it over.”

Garnexis flipped the page.

Lady Isa. And beside her, Neir. Both standing together in front of Wintermere.

Rielle whispered, “Neir.”

Her hands dropped. Fists clenched.

“I wasn’t sure before,” she said. “I’ve only felt his Moon magic once, but now I’m certain. It’s in the lake. It’s in this room. He’s part of this.”

“You said he was a guardian of old magic, right?” Shara said. “Maybe he meant the lake.”

“The Water magic feels old,” Aster said. “Perhaps it’s the same with the Moon magic and he’s tied to it?”

“He said he came to check on the magic surrounding Nythral,” Rielle said. “If he spoke the truth, then it’s all connected to Wintermere. Or he’s lying.”

I looked at her, then at Aster. She caught my glance. Her eyes were soft and furious. Her hand slipped into mine, comforting. Both Veyn and Neir was part of whatever was happening here, but at least Aster wasn’t part of this.

“What we know is Lady Isa, Veyn, and Neir have all been here,” Shara said bringing all of our thoughts together, “and they know something of what’s going on. And they haven’t told anyone.”

I shoved some papers aside on the desk, needing to do something with my hands. A glint of metal caught my eye.

One of Isa’s spoons. Her favorite ones.

I held it up. “I would say your assumptions are sound, Shara. This desk belongs to Lady Isa.”

“If she owns the desk, and her magic froze Halven,” Rielle looked to Aster who nodded, “then can we trust her at all?”

“Or any of them?” Shara rubbed her chest. “They could be working together.”

Garnexis picked up the half-empty mug, sniffing it. “I think the more important question is, how long ago was she here?”

Aster looked at the doorway. “And when will she be back?”

Every muscle locked tight.

That was it. I started shoving things back into place on the desk. “I don’t want to end up as an ice cube for standing in the wrong place.” I wiped my hands on my robes. “Let’s get out of here.”

I grabbed Aster’s hand, pulling her toward the door. As it closed behind us, Rielle’s desperate whisper filled the tunnel. “We have to help him.”

Shara’s reply was a fierce promise. “We will.”

Ever the practical one, Garnexis said, “I don’t plan on leaving him there either. But we can’t help him if we get caught. We need a plan.”

A plan. Yes. We needed a plan. And this time, I would be there to see it through, to see Halven freed. No matter what.

Not everything makes it into these logs. Some moments are too raw or tangled to untangle in writing. What happened between me and Aster after everything... well, I’ll let you see that for yourself. You should have received the instructions in your packet. If not, check back with the archive staff. You won’t want to miss this one.