Leaf Records

 Aerisday, Septis 18

We must find Halven.

Or the very least, find out what happened to him.

No one is talking about his disappearance, but something is not right.

I arrived to the Academy of Harmony & Magic in Nivara Hall the day before classes started.

I had barely unpacked my satchel when Ardorion tossed his cloak onto his bed like it owed him money and said, “We should check on Aster. Maybe her face will finally crack if we ask the right question.”

I gave him a look, but I could not deny the idea made sense. I could tell he felt the same about finding Halven. We all had our own relationship with the Air Fae.

Halven had been my best friend. There was something tempered in him. He'd been born during the Galestone Wars, shaped by that chaos, even if he rarely spoke of it. There was steel in him—peaceful, but never passive. He’d survived things others didn’t, and not just because of talent. There was heart in him, and grit.

Halven vanishing without a word was not right. His entire quad seemed too quiet, and now that we were all back at Goldspire, it felt wrong not to follow up. I glanced toward Rielle, who was smoothing the corner of her blanket with fingers far too calm. That alone told me how shaken she really was.

“Maybe we should go,” I said, soft but certain. “Rielle, would you want to? I mean, you and Halven were close once.”

More than close. Rielle and Halven had often hidden beneath her blankets amid giggles and sighs. I could only imagine the kisses they shared. I haven’t kissed anyone since... Not since Veyn left me and everyone in Nythral two years ago.

Her smile was polite but didn’t reach her eyes. She had broken up with Halven sometime over the summer break. “I’m not sure.”

Still, she came with us—myself, Ardorion, and Garnexis.

Goldspire Tower holds all the second-years, and Halven’s quad was just across the hall from ours. Familiar stone, same high arched doorways, but stepping into their space felt colder somehow. Aster was the only one there, arms folded, eyes like polished frost. She didn’t stop us from entering, but she didn’t invite us in either.

Ardorion crossed the threshold and leaned dramatically against the doorframe, like he owned the place, arms folded and voice full of heat.

“Well, look who decided to keep the icicle throne warm while the rest of us were actually worried,” he said, eyes locking onto Aster.

Aster stood near the window in the main room, half in shadow, half washed in cold morning light. She didn’t move. She didn’t even blink.

And she was beautiful. Not in the loud, obvious way Ardorion liked to pretend he hated, but in the kind of way that made you go silent before you realized why. Her skin shimmered like wet stone, textured in a way that looked sculpted, not born. Like other full fae, her hair moved. Long pale blue strands clung to her shoulders like snowmelt clinging to a cliff face.

Her eyes were the most startling part—deep violet and glowing faintly, like moonlight seen through ice. You could drown in eyes like that. Maybe Ardorion already had.

She gave him a flat look. “And look who decided to speak without thinking. Again.”

Ardorion gave her a grin that was more fire than smile. “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.”

“Oh, come on,” Ardorion said, stepping inside now when Rielle pushed him forward. “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 evenly. “I just don’t shout about it like a Summer Fae with something to prove.”

I resisted the urge to sigh. It was always like this with the two of them—sarcasm as second language, veiled insults as affection. Part of me wondered if they even realized how tangled their words had become.

While they traded heat and ice, I walked into Halven’s room and let my eyes wander around. It was too neat. Too preserved. Halven’s bed was still made, his writing desk was stacked with books arranged by subject. A woven bracelet sat folded on a corner shelf, untouched. The air felt suspended, like the space hadn’t exhaled since he left.

Then I saw it—something barely visible, half-tucked beneath the bed. A flash of pale paper, warped and curling at the edge.

I stepped forward, crouching slowly so I didn’t startle anyone.

“Guys,” I said, holding it up, “I found something.”

Everyone gathered around, and I read the smeared ink aloud. The words were panicked, fragmented. Something about an Emberglyph. Something about voices. And then the line that stopped my breath: “Do not trust—” followed by a wash of water damage.

It ended in my hands. My fingers trembled.

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

Before I could answer, someone new entered the quad and with a booming voice, yelled, “Ardorion!”

Elio. A Stone Dragon.

He was one of Halven and Aster’s quadmates. We all turned to him.

He gave us a wide smile. “Hey, strangers.”

Elio was sunlight in motion. Ardorion lit up immediately, matching his intensity. They slapped shoulders like long-lost brothers. It was ridiculous.

They bantered for a while, catching up, while Elio mentioned that Lo, their last quadmate, had gone back to the Spring Quadrant to speak with Halven’s adoptive parents.

Aster stayed near the window. She finally spoke again, voice quiet but edged.

“I’ve brought this to Lady Isa. Told her it’s not natural, this disappearance. She brushed me off.”

Her eyes met mine for the briefest second. There was a tremble there. Not weakness—just something unraveling.

I pressed the journal page closer to my chest.

When we left, the others split off. I went back to my room in our quad, but could not sleep. No matter how much I prayed to my goddess, needing the full night of sleep before the first day of classes, before seeing Veyn again, I stayed up until dawn.

Terrasday, Septis 20

Classes started yesterday, and I found myself early to Elemental Alchemy: The Art of Binding Nature to Magic.

I wanted to love this class.

I love the idea of binding nature to magic. As a Wood Fae so closely tied to plants and living things, it should have felt like a perfect match—another thread to follow back to myself. But of course, it had to be taught by him.

Veyn.

I knew it would be. I had seen his name on the schedule weeks ago, and still I registered. I was not going to let his presence dictate what I could or could not learn. But I was scared to see him again. I hadn’t seen him in over two years.

That was why I convinced Rielle to join me. I felt bad for asking her, not really having to convince her. She still blamed herself for Veyn leaving. After years of having dreams about Veyn’s death, she’d finally had one that told him how to survive. He embraced the answer—leaving Nythral.

Several times I’ve reassured her that I didn’t hold her accountable for his actions. Perhaps it was wrong to ask her to join me for this class knowing how she felt but I knew she would not ask questions. And maybe, deep down, I just didn’t want to walk into that room alone.

We sat together near the middle of the room, where the light filtering through the glass windows softened to a greenish gold. Rielle was as poised and unreadable as ever, half in this world, half somewhere else. Her silver-white hair was braided loosely today, a cascade of silk down her back. It didn’t move because she was a hybrid, half Moon Fae, half human.

She kept her head tilted slightly, her gaze drifting across the floor, like she was listening to something I couldn’t hear.

“I think he dyed the leaves in his hair darker,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.

I glanced at her, then followed her eyes to the front of the room.

Veyn was standing there in silence, reviewing notes. His long hair, still damp from the misty morning air, was braided with vines that vibrated with small shakes—dark green and interwoven with silver stems. The same leaf pattern traced the collar of his robes, where woven fibers mimicked veins. Even from across the room, he looked like something grown rather than born.

He was a Wood Fae like me. I should know. We grew up together.

And I knew everything about him—or I had. I had known how to make his eyes shine with bronze brilliance with a single touch. I had known how a soft kiss over his heart made it beat faster. I had known what it was like to lie in his arms and feel closer to him than to any other.

The vines twining around my arms glowed a soft green light in response to my thoughts. Seditious twigs! Their leaves trembled as if laughing.

Those were things I had known about him. I didn’t know this Veyn anymore. Even if he hadn’t changed much. Not outwardly. Still golden-skinned and sharp-eyed, still moving like his body remembered wind and water more than logic or control. But there was something heavier in him now. As if time had settled behind his ribs and decided to stay.

Whatever it was had made his natural flora darker.

I gave Rielle a smile. “He’s changed in some ways.”

And not at all in others. He was still just as handsome. Would his lips feel the same on mine as they always had?

Rielle smiled back without looking at me.

I sighed. This Veyn was not the man I once knew. He was only two years older than me, but once, that hadn’t felt like a lifetime. Things had started to change when he became the youngest to earn a teaching title at Nivara Hall. Right before he vanished without a single word.

Now he was back. Just as Halven was missing.

And I could not stop wondering if those two things were connected.

Before my thoughts churned again, class began. Veyn spoke softly but clearly, explaining the foundational theory of natural alignment and spell compatibility. I took notes at first. I even tried to focus. But the way he moved,  the rhythm of his voice—it all kept pulling me back.

I remembered how Halven used to tease us when he’d see us drawing closer to the other, how we used to sit under the trees in Ethergard’s southern garden, our shoulders brushing. Veyn had kissed me for the first time there. It hadn’t been the last time, but it was still the best kiss I’ve ever had. It had felt like spring rain soaking through roots—slow and sure and deeper than I expected.

Veyn had been everything to me then.

When he left without a word, something in me had gone quiet.

I could not bring myself to look at him now, so I reached into my bag and pulled out the torn journal page from Halven’s room. I still didn’t know why I had brought it with me, only that it felt wrong to leave it behind.

I set it on the desk, smoothing the edges. My eyes were drawn again to the symbol scribbled across it. Like an afterthought, repeated again and again. It wasn’t a Wood Fae mark. It wasn’t any script I recognized.

Rielle leaned over slightly to look at the page. Her brow furrowed.

“An Emberglyph?” she asked.

Summer Fae were the only fae to use glyphs.

“Maybe Ardorion would know it?” I asked.

Veyn’s voice stopped.

I looked up.

He stood only a desk away, next to an empty seat, staring at the parchment. His expression didn’t shift at first, but his hands slowly lowered to the edge of the desk beside him. For one long moment, his eyes stayed on the page grasped in my fingers, flickering through recognition, then confusion, then something colder.

Fear.

I shoved the paper back into my bag, cheeks flushing, pulse fluttering.

I felt his eyes on me again later, and when I looked up...

My heart fluttered.

Words he had yet to speak to me rested in his eyes, a song of guilt, regret, sorrow.

Then he turned away.

Heat climbed my neck, and my vines tightened around my chest. I refused to look at him again for the rest of class.

Afterward, Rielle left to attend Cycles of the Moon & Dream Theory. I didn’t have a class so I wandered to the Library of Seasons instead. I needed answers. Rielle might be the dreamer with prophetic visions, but my gut was telling me that Veyn’s return was not coincidental.

I moved through shelves until I found what I was looking for—an older volume on elemental glyph systems. The edges were frayed, the spine half-cracked.

After three pages, I found the mark.

Gemina Flamma. Twin Flame.

Summer Fae interpretation: Split strength. Ground your fire. Ignite the center.

I didn’t understand. Halven was Air Fae. What was he doing with a Summer Fae glyph?

As I turned the page, I felt a presence behind me.

I closed the book and looked up.

Veyn.

My heart jumped.

He did not speak at first. Just watched me, the way he used to—like I was more than I knew how to be.

How dare he look at me like that after he left me!

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I wished I had Garnexis’s gumption. I’d tell him off, then walk away with a final command to never speak to me again.

He reached into the pocket of his robe and held something out to me.

A leaf. Pale green, shaped like a spiral, almost too symmetrical to be natural.

“I found this near the west grounds,” he said. “I remembered how you used to collect unusual leaves.”

Our fingers brushed as I reached for it.

I stared at it, then at him. I had once told him, in a whisper beneath the canopy of the southern garden trees, that I believed each shape of leaf told a story. That they could predict something. That they spoke to the future.

I wanted a power like Rielle’s. I wanted to be powerful like Veyn.

It was something I never told anyone. How could I tell my best friend and my lover that sometimes I felt less than them?

But Veyn had remembered my love for collecting these leaves.

Tears stuck in my throat, my eyes on the leaf in my hand while I wrestled with what to say. I wanted to hate him for leaving me.

Before I could utter a word, he turned and walked away.

Leaving me again.

I stared at the leaf for a long time, wiping away tears and wondering what story it was trying to tell me—and whether Veyn was meant to be in it.

Then I saw a different sigil or glyph on the back, but this one I couldn’t find anywhere.

By the time I returned to our quad that evening, the sun had dipped low. One of the rooms was already occupied, Rielle asleep under a spell-dimmed light. I tucked the leaf safely into my journal and set the page from Halven beside it. I wanted to speak with the others, but my voice felt caught in my chest.

Metisday, Septis 21

We all gathered again tonight in our common room, sitting on the couches and plush seating. There was something unspoken in the air between us—like a storm circling.

Each of us shared what we had found.

Ardorion spoke first. He had gone to Wintermere after our visit to Halven’s room, seeking space to cool down after arguing with Aster—his words, not mine. What he found there was a strange parchment with a metallic look, the edges still warm with spell-burn. It carried an Emberglyph, the same symbol from Halven’s torn page: Gemina Flamma.

“I tried to grab it,” he said, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. His short and spiky fire hair waved with fast undulations. “But I wasn’t alone.”

“What do you mean?” Rielle asked, her voice soft but steady.

“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.”

“Did they speak?” I asked. One of my vines with baby leaves caressed the side of my face in a soothing motion. I really had no control over the plants living in my skin, but they always knew what to do to help me.

He shook his head while pulling out a scrap piece of paper with the Emberglyph in his handwriting, the paper edges scorched. “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.”

Garnexis let out a sharp breath and pushed her curtain of ruby-colored hair behind one ear. “That’s funny because I did grab it.”

We all turned to her, while she showed us this same metallic scrap. She explained how she had found it, how she had touched it to the lake—and how it had burned the glyph into her wrist.

“Left one,” she added, showing us a faint outline still etched into her skin. “It’s fading now. 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, but she had taken it back by sheer force of will and one well-timed distraction. Her secret smile made me wonder about what distraction she used. What an intriguing wine blush spreading beneath the sheen of her metallic-gray skin. Garnexis was not one to hold back or let anything fluster her. The reason for it struck me.

“Oh, gods and goddesses,” I said. “Did you kiss Orivian?”

The blush deepened before she pocketed the metallic-like parchment and crossed her arms. “I use any tools I have to get what I want.”

Rielle spoke next. Her voice was slow, almost dreamlike, but certain. “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.”

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.

Surprise lifted my eyebrows. “Did everyone except me kiss somebody in the first days of school?”

Ardorion snorted. “There’s no one I would kiss.”

Garnexis’s laughter made her arms loose. “You mean you wouldn’t survive the frosted kiss of the one woman you can’t have.”

We all joined in the laughter except for Ardorion. His short fire hair frothed into higher flames. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Right! We all knew how much Ardorion and Aster were drawn to the other, like two stars circling each other, gravity pulling them closer and closer. It was only a matter of time before those two collided, and then there would be fireworks.

When the laughter died away, Rielle continued. “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.”

She pulled out the smudged note. The glyph was barely visible, but we all recognized the shape. The same as Halven’s page. The same as Ardorion’s drawing. The same as Garnexis’s wrist.

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

His golden eyes dimmed. “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,” I said. They looked at me with surprise. I shrugged my shoulders. “I found it in a book. You know, in that place they call a library.”

Still they just looked at me.

“Well, keep us in suspense then.” Garnexis crossed her arms again.

I 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.”

Ardorion raised a single fire-red eyebrow. His fiery hair had calmed down. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

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

No one answered right away.

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

It was then I showed them the leaf Veyn had given me. I hadn’t wanted to, not at first, because it was even more ambiguous, but something about the moment made it feel right. When I flipped to the backside with the glyph, we all looked to Ardorion, but he shook his head.

“I don’t know that one,” he said.

I 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, almost looking like a bird. “Where did you get that?”

I grumbled, not really wanting to say his name aloud.

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

Rielle frowned at him.

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

Ardorion leaned an arm on the table next to him and tapped his fingers against the wood. “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 glanced down at the edge of her sleeve. “Wouldn’t you want him to do the same for us?”

My heart twisted for her. Even if she’d broken up with Halven, she’d genuinely cared about the Air Fae.

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

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

Rielle straightened her thin shoulders. “We should make a pact. No one investigates alone. No more secrets.”

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

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

“A pact,” Ardorion said, holding out his hands.

One by one, we nodded and linked our hands. Moon, Metal, Fire, and Wood Fae, bound not by magic, but by the bond between us as friends.

And it was stronger.

It was choice.

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

 Septis 31 

Several days had passed since we first found that letter from Professor Tilwyn in the library’s Restricted Section. The days blurred together, classes, notes, fragments of half-answers that never formed a whole. Halven was still gone, and no one but us seemed to care.

The week had ended in noise. The opening sessions of Practical Duels & Spells Synthesis had been as loud and dazzling as ever, an explosion of magic and performance. Fourth-years wielded spells like dancers in a storm. One conjured a lightning whip that shattered a mirrored battlefield into a swirling chaos maze. Another used layered illusions to mimic fighting in three directions at once.

It should’ve thrilled me. And a small part of it did. But it also reminded me how far we still were from answers about Halven, about the glyphs, about everything.

I sat cross-legged on the floor in our quad, leafing through my notes. The spiral-shaped leaf Veyn had given me weeks ago lay on the table beside my parchment stack. I caught myself turning it over in my hand again and again, the edges soft from too much contact. The glyph on the back still bothered me.

Veyn had said nothing when he gave me the leaf. Just walked away. But the glyph felt deliberate, like it was left for me to find.

Across the table, Rielle scribbled notes into the margin of her astronomy charts. Her handwriting had the same rhythm as her voice, elegant but a little haunted.

Garnexis was by the window, adjusting her bracers again, perched like she was ready to leap into a fight or out of the room.

We were quiet, the four of us. But the kind of quiet that grows too big when it isn’t filled.

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

I looked up. “Yes, that’s what you told us.”

“I never heard of anything like that,” Garnexis added, her tone sharp with disbelief.

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

“Why would that matter?” I asked. And even as I did, I stopped twirling the leaf in my hand. I turned it over, letting the glyph show, as if it might reveal secrets.

I’d searched every Emberglyph record in the library and come up with nothing.

Slysday meant Runes and Sigils, the one class we all shared. I’d meant to bring up the unknown glyph. I had even written down a few phrasing options in the margin of my notes. But after Lady Isa’s confrontation in the library, her warning stern and final, none of us asked. Not even to Professor Ilham. Especially not to her.

Rielle leaned forward, her gaze never leaving the symbol. “That glyph doesn’t match anything we’ve studied.”

“Uh-huh, exactly, and—”

I cut Ardorion off before he could take the thought. “The glyph could have been one of the Water Fae glyphs!”

I could feel his sigh even before he crossed his arms. He was always like this when someone beat him to a conclusion. But this wasn’t about who said it first. We were finally getting somewhere, finally not stalled in a fog of unknowing.

Rielle touched the edge of the leaf gently. “We need to go back to the library.”

I nodded automatically but then paused. “The Fall Equinox celebration is soon. Less than a week before the Spiral of Seasons Dance.”

I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it had been on my mind. Halven and I had spent the evening laughing last year, sneaking sweets from the Fall table and dancing until the torches died down. Even if things felt broken now, part of me wanted one night—just one—to breathe.

“Already? That came fast,” Rielle said. But the shadow that crossed her face told me she was remembering Halven, too.

Halven would always be my best friend, but he was no longer Rielle’s love. Her memories would be all she’d have of him, at least ones like those, even if we found Halven. The two of them had a great love for each other.

Both Garnexis and Ardorion’s faces also fell with remembering last year’s Spiral of Seasons celebration.

During the dance, Halven had sent pastries whirling through the air with precise little Air spells, and of course Ardorion had to add fire. They looked like edible comets. One landed on Professor Ilham’s hat.

I wanted to be annoyed. I wasn’t. It was ridiculous. And so very them.

And for Garnexis, attending a dance was not something she wanted to do, but then Halven had joined her near the edge of the dancing.

They didn’t dance. They just sat there, heads tilted close in quiet conversation. Halven had that effect on people. He made it feel okay to just be yourself.

She never told me what they talked about but the two of them had bonded in way she hadn’t yet bonded with either me or Rielle.

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

I chuckled.

Rielle turned to Ardorion, light teasing in her voice. “Who will you pair with for the open dance at the end, Ardorion?”

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

I couldn’t help myself. I wagged a finger at him. “You better not leave without one of us, which means you’ll be staying a while.”

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.

Perhaps Garnexis might create a closer bond with Ardorion?

Ardorion put a hand to his chest, dramatically thumping it twice. “You are my true love, Garnexis.”

Garnexis gave him a dry look and moved away from the window, sitting on the floor and fiddling with her bracers again. I recognized the action, not boredom, but control. Grounding.

“Do you really think going back to the library will be helpful?” she asked. “Aster said only oral stories were passed down about the glyphs they used.”

I flipped through a few more pages and tapped the one that caught my eye. “There has to be some record of the Water Fae using glyphs. We’ll just have to dig deep for any reference. I’ll go with you tomorrow, Rielle.”

“Hurrah!” Rielle’s voice sparkled, and a pearlescent veil flashed briefly over her eyes. A small slip of magic. I pretended not to notice. She was already self-conscious over not being able to control her Moon Walking.

“Great,” Ardorion 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.”

“I’m right here, Flameboy,” Garnexis replied without looking up.

“I know. That’s why I’m volunteering.”

We paused, just for a breath. No one spoke. The candle on the table crackled, wax pooling at its base.

Then I asked the question still burning in the back of my mind. “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.”

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

Ardorion shrugged. “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, candlelight dancing off the metal of her bracers. “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?” I asked, more to myself than anyone.

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

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

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

Ardorion grinned, but beneath the usual drama was something else. He loved us. He really did. He just didn’t say it the way we did. He said it through jokes and fire and walking beside us when we didn’t ask.

A tiny flame sparked at his fingertips, then disappeared as quickly as it came.

“Always do,” he said.

Septis 36

We had been back to the library four times in the last five days.

Each time, we found nothing. Or almost nothing. Plenty of theories, but no real answers. Just contradictory footnotes and vague speculation on elemental theory. There were moments I thought I imagined the glyph on the back of Veyn’s leaf. Moments I thought we were chasing ghosts.

But Rielle had found something. A name.

Ayzella dal Mirava, Second Crescent Moon Clan. A Moon Fae who had lived with a Water Clan nearly six hundred years ago and had written extensively about her time among them.

Then Rielle had dreamed of her.

Not the way most people mean when they say that. She’d woken two mornings ago with the name Ayzella still whispering on her tongue. She said she saw her standing at the edge of a tidepool, parchment soaked through her fingers, eyes the same color as frosted water under starlight.

Rielle believes Ayzella might have an answer.

So we came back again. Because that’s what we do when we don’t know how to stop.

We sat side by side in the northern wing, surrounded by scrolls and folios and ink-stained silence. Rielle sifted through biographical indexes. I had taken up a worn, leather-bound collection of Ayzella’s later essays, hoping to find anything—anything—that pointed to something concrete.

I was halfway through an essay titled "Echoes in Ritual Silence" when a passage caught my eye.

I blinked, leaned in, and read it again, heart beginning to drum a little faster.

“Rielle,” I said, my voice a whisper of urgency. “Listen to this.”

She looked up from her index page.

I read aloud: “Of all the things I was never meant to write, the glyphs remain the most sacred. But I could not let them be lost to breath alone. I wrote them anyway, in the smallest of hours, in secret. The record remains hidden. My mourning in ink. A Winter Record of Forgotten Water Glyphs.”

The silence between us shifted, like the moment before a tide pulls back.

Rielle sat up straighter. “That’s it.”

I was already nodding. “It has to be.”

She didn’t smile, but there was something lit behind her eyes. “I haven’t seen that title anywhere. Should we check the Shadow Index?”

I nodded.

We left our table without speaking and crossed to the eastern stair, our footsteps soft on stone too old to echo.

The Shadow Index lived on the upper level of the Library of Seasons, hidden in plain sight behind a set of arching glass doors etched with dragons. Most students never came here. Most didn’t even know they could.

But we did.

A violet glow lit the walls like twilight. Soft, but somehow weighty. As if the room understood the nature of its contents.

The librarian was already watching us.

She stood behind a single, obsidian desk, her hood drawn back just enough to reveal the braids tucked behind her rounded ears. With her dark skin and a sense of magic to her, she had to be a hybrid fae. Her presence was immediate.

“Welcome, seeker, to the Shadow Index,” she said, not cold, but not warm either.

I swallowed, and Rielle stepped forward.

“We’re looking for a record,” she said, voice steady. “A Winter Record of Forgotten Water Glyphs.”

The librarian did not move at first. Then she lifted one hand, palm tilted sideways, and the air around it began to shimmer.

The temperature increased half a degree.

Magic stirred.

Then, with a rush of silence, a scroll came soaring forward from somewhere unseen, weaving between shelves that didn’t seem to exist. It stopped mid-air before her.

She caught it one-handed.

“I will need it back,” she said. “Unmarked. Unspoken of. And it doesn’t leave the library.”

With our grave nods, she extended it to us.

Rielle took it with both hands.

We didn’t speak as we turned to leave.

There are moments in life when you know the world will never return to what it was.

This was one of them.

Carefully, we unrolled the scroll at one of the tables near the Shadow Index. I don’t know if it was magic or anticipation, but my hands tingled as we began to read the scroll.

At first, it just seemed like a series of entries from a woman visiting a Water clan that had isolated itself from all the others. But when my eyes fell upon the word glyph-keepers, I knew we had to be reading the right document.

We weren’t just reading now.

We were remembering something that was never meant to be written.

If we had time I would have loved to read through all the entries. There is a story here, one that moved beyond what we were looking for. One that spoke of old rituals, forgotten spells, and even love.

Then there, not quite halfway through the scroll, was my glyph.

Exactly as it had been on the back of the spiral leaf Veyn gave me.

It was called Theralen.

The translation read: To release flow.

I stared at it, my thoughts spiraling faster than I could catch them. I didn’t know what “flow” meant in this context. Flow of what? Magic? Memory? Time?

Rielle leaned in close, her voice barely above a whisper. “This doesn’t feel like an accident.”

She wasn’t just talking about the glyph. She meant the leaf. Veyn. The timing. Everything.

Except, what did any of it mean?

I nodded. “He must have known but what is he trying to tell me with the Theralen.”

She shrugged.

Frustration welled inside me, and my vines grew restless over my body. Just more questions. More mysteries.

I was still holding the scroll, tracing the glyph with my eyes, when Rielle stilled beside me.

“Shara.”

I looked up.

A black cat sat at the edge of the nearest bookcase, golden eyes unblinking, tail curled neatly around its paws. It didn’t move. It just watched us.

I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to startle it.

Then it stood, turned, and walked a few steps away. Slowly. Deliberately. At the corner of the shelves, it paused, looked back, then continued.

Rielle’s voice was low, certain. “I think we’re supposed to follow it.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask why.

I mean, why not!? After everything else, why not one more mystery?

I looked once more at the glyph in my hand, then to the one inked onto the scroll. Theralen. My thumb brushed the spiral leaf Veyn had given me, still nestled between the folds of the parchment.

I didn’t know what this had to do with the cat.

But I believed her.

With the shadow slipping around the edge of the aisle, nothing felt like an answer.

But both felt important.

So, after returning the scroll, I followed Rielle, who chased the cat.

We left the Shadow Index in near silence, the scroll still in my mind.

The black cat weaved through the shelves and disappeared toward the main hall. We kept after it, winding through the dimming library, slipping past the closing bells without a glance back.

By the time we reached the exit, the light had gone golden, casting long shadows through the archway.

But as we stepped into the courtyard, the cat veered off and vanished between two hedges that lined the west wing.

We chased it down the path beside the outer wall, boots crunching softly on the gravel.

That’s when we saw them, Ardorion and Garnexis, standing at the edge of the greenhouses, both staring at something ahead.

We slowed, not saying anything as we came up beside them.

They turned as we reached them.

“Queenie?” Ardorion asked looking at our cat.

It walked with tail high, posture smooth and confident, like it belonged here more than any of us ever could. Then its tail swished.

I looked between them. “You know this cat?”

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

She yawned, entirely unimpressed.

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

The cat nodded, then turned and padded toward the greenhouses without waiting.

We followed without question.

No one ever went near that last greenhouse, the one built into the edge of the outer hall. It was overgrown, partially sunken, practically forgotten. The glass was copper-runed and choked in ivy. In all my time at the academy, no professor had ever mentioned it.

But now, I couldn’t imagine not knowing it was there.

The cat slipped through a narrow gap in the hedgerow next to the last greenhouse and across a hidden path between the overgrowth. We ducked through the brush and followed until the air around us shifted.

A conservatory rose in front of us like a memory no one had told. I hadn’t known it was back here. Its glass panels were ribbed in gold and stretched higher than they had any right to. And when we stepped inside, everything changed.

The heat hit like summer.

My breath caught at the sudden change in air, humid and heady, thick with magic and scent. Scorched cedar. Sun-warmed citrus. And something deeper: the shimmer of magic so potent it vibrated along the walls of the room. Not Wood magic, or I would be able to read it.

Rielle gasped in this heat, and I reached out to squeeze her hand. This much heat would affect her as a creature of Winter.

“Queenie,” she whispered to the cat, but it had already stopped.

She sat beside a nest built of Ashwood. And there, in the center, was the creature from every myth we were told as children. The one from the story we’d just read.

The Firebird.

I froze.

He was enormous. Every feather shimmered like burning dawn, living flames that held no destruction. His body radiated warmth in waves, but it wasn’t just heat. It was presence. Like a god that had chosen to rest, and we had interrupted his breath.

His eyes were molten gold and fixed on us. He didn’t move.

None of us did.

Ardorion 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.

Not just a legend but something ancient.

When Garnexis whispered, “That’s him,” I barely nodded.

Ardorion stepped forward.

The Firebird tilted his head, then—without warning—lifted one massive wing.

Feathers fell like embers. Glowing. Slow. Suspended in air, just waiting.

None of us moved. Then his voice hit us, not in our ears. Inside our minds.

Take them. You need to keep them sleeping.

The words echoed behind my eyes, resonant but steady. Like a cavern answering back after years of silence.

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?

Ardorion dropped to one knee without hesitation, picked up the feathers with careful hands, and stood again. His movements were reverent. Not a word I usually used for him.

But there was no other word for this.

The Firebird said nothing more. Just closed his eyes as if sleeping.

We left.

Outside, the cold hit hard and fast. My breath fogged before me, sharp with the scent of ivy and frost.

We were halfway back to Goldspire when I finally asked, “What are we supposed to do with them?”

Them.

So ambiguous.

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

I threw my hands up. “Just more mysteries!”

I rarely snapped like that, but the weight of everything—Veyn, Halven, the glyph, the Firebird—it all cracked open at once.

Still, with my friends’ surprised expressions, I composed myself quickly and added for Ardorion 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,’” I said, softer now. “But it still doesn’t clear up any of these mysteries.”

Ardorion exhaled, still clutching the feathers. They were sparking, but not burning anything, like a spark without the will to destroy.

“I think I might know what to do. Maybe.”

He looked to Garnexis, his face a quest for help.

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

I stared, incredulous at the idea. “You think the feathers are the key?”

They exchanged a glance, and Ardorion answered.

“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.”

My eyes widened. “Wow, you put all that together yourself?”

Instantly, little flames sparked through his hair, and he bristled. “What does that mean?”

I caught his arm before he could fully combust. “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.”

His fire sputtered out, replaced by something warmer. I saw it in the corners of his mouth.

“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 Ardorion.

He threw up his hands. “Hey now, I didn’t call myself the genius, so why look at me?”

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

He smiled wider than I’d seen in days.

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

No one argued.

Ardorion looked down at the feathers still glowing in his hands.

They didn’t feel like keys.

They felt like secrets.

And we were about to see what they unlocked.

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: Never Anyone Else