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

 Octis 15

My fingers flew across the spare parchment, the scratching of my quill the only sound I was truly aware of in our quad’s common. The scroll, A Winter Record of Forgotten Water Glyphs, lay open before me, its ancient paper whispering secrets I was terrified to lose. I had slipped it from the Shadow Index less than an hour ago, a theft that felt both necessary and reckless. Every instinct told me the answers were here, buried in the elegant, sorrowful script of Ayzella dal Mirava.

The common room of our quad was quiet, but not still. A low fire crackled in the hearth, casting flickering shadows against the stone walls. Across from me, Rielle wrote in her own journal, though her gaze kept lifting, her brow furrowed with concern.

“Shara, please be careful,” she murmured, her voice soft as moss. She pressed the journal to her chest, concern knitting her brow. “If they find out you took that…”

“I know.” I didn’t pause in scribbling my notes because I knew the risks. “But we need to know everything we can before they realize it’s gone.”

From the couch, Ardorion and Garnexis argued, their voices a low rumble that I tuned out like background noise.

“I’m telling you, it’s going to be a practical,” Ardorion insisted. “The midterm for Elemental Fusion has to be. Something about offensive combinations.”

“You always think it’s about offense.” Garnexis didn’t look up from polishing a metal bracer. “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?” Ardorion leaned forward and igniting small flames at his fingertips as he spoke. “We should practice early. Midterms are only twelve days away.”

Garnexis rolled her eyes, arms crossed defensively. “We don’t even know what the assignment is yet. Calm down.”

Ardorion’s hair flared a brighter red, agitation seeping into the room. “I just don’t want to fail.”

Garnexis sighed, waving a dismissive hand. “You won’t fail with me as your partner.”

Ardorion’s eyes flared with a golden light and his smile entered his voice. “You’ll be my partner?”

She gave a slight smile on return as if she was holding back a secret. “There’s no one else I’d want to work with.”

“Good,” Ardorion huffed, his flames calming. “My fire, your metal. We’ll build the most offensively structured thing the professor has ever seen.”

I listened with only half an ear and smiled at the genuine friendship between the two, no matter how much they fought. Who didn’t fight with Ardorion?

Rielle shifted beside me, closing her journal. “We should talk again about the tunnels. About what we found down there.”

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

Rielle shook her head. “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. But when had it been dropped there?” Garnexis asked.

Rielle raised her brow, her eyes shining with her excitement to have Garnexis questioning along with her. “If it was recent then who was just there?

Ardorion yawned while leaning his head back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling, trying to pretend he didn’t care. “I mean think about it, who has ever seen anyone going through that portal?”

I leveled a look at him. “They don’t have to go through the portal during the library’s open hours. Not if they’re faculty.”

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

Ugh! I hate this. “Who knows what we are saying? It seems like the more we learn the less we know.”

Ardorion groaned. “It’s not fair.”

When he left those words hanging there, Garnexis reached over to slap the back of her hand on his stomach.

Ardorion whipped forward, looking wide eyed at her. “What was that for?”

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

That put a cocky smile on his face before he remembered his earlier complaint. “It’s not fair that you all saw someone you knew. Halven, Master Thalric, Neir. I got some strange woman spouting riddles. It was completely senseless.”

Master Thalric. I missed his teachings so it was nice to hear him talk to me again, even if it was in a vision. But Ardorion was right. Why had we all seen someone we knew and he didn’t.

Then Azyella’s words floated in my mind’s eye. All these notes I was writing. My quill stilled, and I glanced up, recalling Ardorion’s words from the woman he saw. “Your vision might be the most important, Ardorion.”

He stared at me, surprised. “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.” I tapped the scroll. “Ayzella wrote that the Water Glyphs are shapes of feeling. Water has memory.”

Everyone turned quiet, watching me intently.

Ardorion threw his hands up dramatically. “Well, that explains everything.”

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

Ardorion groaned louder. “It means I got a vision that should have gone to Shara.”

He was not entirely wrong. Master Thalric’s words to ‘connect through this binding’ and to ‘save them’. But the meaning felt veiled, just out of reach, and the frustration was a familiar ache. Just like seeing Ethergard’s southern garden, where Veyn had kissed me for the first time. I turned back to the scroll, my focus narrowing again on Ayzella’s elegant script.

“I feel sorry for her,” I murmured, annotating a passage under the entry for Night 85. “She loved him, this Mizunomi man. But she was going to leave him anyway, for her duty.”

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

Rielle felt the same sense of duty to her people, to her family. She had spoken to me about it for many long hours when she realized her feelings for Halven had deepened. She couldn’t marry him, not with the future she could carry in her womb when she married another Moon Fae. She agonized over her decision but eventually broke things over with Halven.

My thoughts delved into each of our visions then while I went back to taking notes. Ardorion’s mystery woman, Halven’s silent pointing to the lake in Garnexis’s vision, Neir’s wolf form passing on the silent warning to Rielle that the ice was breaking. Mine of my old teacher.

I neared the end of the scroll and Ayzella’s personal notes when I suddenly stopped, quill hovering over Night 87.

A thrill shot through me and I jumped to my feet. “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.’”

When I finished, they just looked at me, a mix of confusion and anticipation on their faces.

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

Without another word, I held the scroll out, showing the sketch next to the entry. It matched exactly the Gemina Flamma.

They crowded around, overlapping voices filling the space:

“That’s the Emberglyph,” Ardorion said.

“Nivareth,” Rielle whispered.

“Bound reflection,” echoed Garnexis.

“It’s a Water Glyph, too?” Ardorion asked.

The air chilled abruptly, breaking our collective focus. The flames in the hearth dipped low. Ardorion’s head whipped toward the door. We all followed his gaze.

Aster stood in the entryway, her arms folded, her violet eyes fixed on the scroll.

“Nivareth has another meaning,” she said calmly. She stepped into the room, her movements fluid and silent, stopping beside me to look down at Ayzella’s drawing. “An older Water Fae story speaks of heartbreak and healing. ‘Balance the halves. Pour stillness downward. Release the frozen heart.’”

I sank back, deflated. Another riddle. Another layer of enigma when all I wanted was a straight path forward. “Just more mysteries.”

Rielle looked at Aster, her expression thoughtful. “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 peered longingly at the scroll. “I’d like to read this—”

“No one else will read that scroll!”

There stood the librarian from the Shadow Index, her expression severe. She held up a hand. The scroll yanked itself from my grasp, rolling neatly itself shut in midair and shot across the room, landing perfectly in her waiting palm, where it vanished in a shimmer of silver light.

“Do not,” she said, her voice leaving no room for argument, “borrow from my library again.” Then she was gone.

“Gods and goddesses,” I breathed, the frustration a bitter taste in my mouth. We’re back to nothing.”

The room stilled in shared frustration. Ardorion’s hair flickered wildly as he paced. “We’ve learned nothing anyways.”

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

Ardorion stopped. “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 softly, optimistic. “The theory is sound, and you may be partially right. What if it’s not a fusion but just a pairing? Water and Fire magic used together to open the Seal?”

A slow grin spread across Ardorion’s face as he turned to Aster. “Looks like you’ll finally be able to join us with your contributions, icicle.”

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

A silent conversation passed between Ardorion and Aster, a current of energy that seemed to draw them closer to the other.

Veyn. The thought of him was immediate.

I didn’t say it aloud, but I wished we could invite Veyn too. No one here had known Halven as long as the two of us. We were the ones who pulled him into our circle when he first arrived, broken and shaking from the Galestone Wars. But things weren’t simple anymore.

The memory of the last conversation with Veyn under the lanterns of the Spiral dance was still a fresh wound. I didn’t know the right questions to ask. And now, even if I did, it might already be too late to open that door again.

My thoughts shifted when Rielle gave Garnexis a soft smile. “Orivian is a lovely person. I think that is a wonderful idea.”

The air in the room shifted. The despair began to recede, replaced by a fragile, thrilling spark of hope. It was a feeling I had been afraid to let myself feel, for fear of it being extinguished again. But this time felt different. This time, we had a direction.

Letting the feeling take root, I looked at each of my friends, my family. My voice was steady when I spoke.

“Then let’s go to the tunnels.”

Octis 23

Frost whispered in the tunnel air, stale against the nervous energy building inside me. It had taken eight days to get back here, eight days of the library swarming with students cramming for midterms. Now, the five of us stood before The Seal’s door, its glyph a silent challenge.

Rielle, Garnexis, Ardorion, Aster, and I formed a jagged semicircle before the twin spirals and sharp triangle, a faint glow on the handless door.

Ardorion took a slow breath, his fingers already sparking with fire. He glanced at Aster.

“Alright, icicle. I’ll lead. Watch closely.” He raised his hands, flame blooming in each palm. “The Emberglyph means to split strength, ground your fire, ignite the center.”

Watching another season of magic always awed me. Drawing on our inner power bled through in our outward appearance, each element different, with even some variations within the same element.

Ardorion’s whole being ignited as he drew on more of his magic. His voice was low, focused. “I start on the outside, where the magic is split until reaching the middle.”

His golden eyes bled into a molten amber, the light within them shifting like lava. Flames, longer and wilder than usual, whipped from his hair as he extended his arms, tracing the twin outer lines of the glyph on the door. Heat pressed against me but nothing burned as he guided his magic.

Fiery, vein-like patterns pulsed across his dark skin, which cracked like obsidian glass. When he reached the spirals, he curved the flames inward, down through the triangle, and into the circle at the bottom.

Aster stepped up beside him. “I think I have it. Nivareth translates to balance the halves, pour stillness downward, and release the frozen heart.”

Violet eyes shifted and shimmered, becoming whirlpools of violet and blue, shot through with flecks of liquid gold. A lavender glow gathered in her hands. “I must also split my magic like yours.”

Then her glow rippled outward until her entire body shimmered with it, golden waves within lavender light moving like water around her limbs. Her light blue hair dripped down the length of her, splashing to the ground.

Their magics mirrored one another, flame and water coursing through the symbol in the same motion, tracing the lines together.

“Bound reflection.” The words slipped from my mouth.

Rielle and Garnexis looked at me.

“The Mizunomi’s translation,” I said. “Ayzella wrote that Nivareth means bound reflection. She said it belongs to Water and Fire. Both, but neither. This—” I nodded toward Ardorion and Aster, their magic entwined over the glyph. “This is them reflecting each other. Bound movements.”

Ardorion glanced at Aster. A half smile played across his mouth, mirrored by her own. They moved together like they’d done this a dozen times before. They hadn’t. But they fit. Over the past week, she’d been spending more time in our quad, and even the way he teased her had changed. Quieter. Easier. Less of a show, more of something real.

I shifted my gaze down the hall, a pang of longing caught behind my ribs. I’d only seen Veyn once, from a distance, in class. When he passed out our midterm assignments, his gaze had slid right past me, no recognition, no shared glance. After everything he’d said during the Spiral of Seasons dance. After all the staring. Now he couldn’t even look at me.

His avoidance was a fresh, confusing ache. I pushed the thought away, focusing on the magic before me.

Steam burst in a sudden hiss. Fire and Water collided with resistance, pushing and pulling until Aster cooled the flow. The flames bent, gentled. Water curved. Together, the two magics twined, spiraled, and locked into place. The two elements a perfect shimmering braid of orange and violet light.

The glyph on the door pulsed once, brightly.

A heavy click echoed.

Then the door popped outward with a groan of ancient stone. A low mist of frigid air spilled through the gap like breath from the deep. Mist curled at our feet.

Ardorion stepped forward first, then Aster. Garnexis followed. I slipped in after her, Rielle moving behind me.

Magic hit like a wall. Thick and saturated, so potent it made me stumble. I caught myself but every breath prickled as I took in this new space. The faintest white pulse moved along the right wall.

Heat from Ardorion’s trail still hovered near the glyph, but the deeper magic drowned it. It was a chaotic symphony of power, but one familiar signature pulsed within it.

Veyn.

The recognition slapped me.

Veyn had been here and he’d used his magic. The thought was a tangled knot of hurt and worry, but there was no time. I pushed it down, my attention snapping to the scene unfolding as Ardorion lit candles on a nearby desk and then a pair of torches on the wall. Flames jumped high, brightening the space.

Tears pricked my eyes.

Rock formed most of the chamber, but one wall was entirely ice. A large desk, cluttered and heavy with work, might have belonged in the Scriptorium. Books, open and stacked. Quills in holders. Ink pots and papers scattered. A tea mug, still half full.

But none of that mattered.

Up against the one wall of ice, upright in a rough block of ice, stood Halven.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

He stared at the ice wall, hand pressed to it, as if he reached for something in the frost. His mouth parted slightly. Expression locked in fear.

My feet moved without command, tears pricking my eyes. My hands landed on the cold, smooth surface of his prison. The cold stung. I closed my eyes, reaching inward to where my magic lived. The voices of my ancestors rose from the bright spark in the center of my being, whispering through the leaves and root of time.

I asked for the spell I needed, and my ancestors answered.

With my magic, I touched Water’s current. Followed its flow into the block. A spell there. More than one or something else. I couldn’t tell. Woven strong, layered and old. Wood magic threaded through it. The source of Veyn’s magical signature.

And deeper still, stubborn thread of life. Faint, but real.

A heartbeat.

My eyes flew open. I stumbled back. “He’s alive.”

Gasps followed. Questions blurred.

“What?” Garnexis’s voice was sharp with disbelief.

“How is that possible?” Ardorion stared, his face a mask of shock.

I shook my head, my gaze snagging on an unblinking Rielle, hands over her mouth, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know.”

Aster moved to the ice wall, her glow returning. Garnexis stepped toward the desk, rifling through the papers.

Flames exploded in Ardorion’s hands.

“I’ll get him out.”

“Wait,” I stepped between him and the ice. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Releasing him could kill him.”

His voice cracked with fury. “For the love of the gods above and below! I can’t just leave him in there!”

Rielle still hadn’t moved. A statue carved from grief.

I went to her, gently putting my hands on her shoulders, blocking her view of the horrific scene of Halven’s frozen body. Her eyes were blank.

“Rielle,” I said softly. “He’s alive. We found him. He’s alive.”

She blinked, her focus slowly returning. Her hands dropped.

“Who did this to him?” Her whisper was raw. “There’s so much magic here. I can feel it.”

We all felt the magic radiating in the room.

“I have a pretty good idea who or what.” Garnexis held up a faded newssheet. She scanned the header as we gathered near the desk, except for Aster who still used her magic on the ice wall. “Year six-thirty-nine”

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

No one spoke. Cold pressed tighter. Ardorion shivered and rubbed his arms. We exchanged glances before looking at Rielle. We were lucky to even know her, to have a friend from a people so nearly erased.

Garnexis cleared her throat and continued reading from the article. “Students at the academy have reported hearing voices… the infirmary is full… by order of Lady Isamore, the academy will be shut down…”

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

Aster abruptly just stepped back from the ice wall, her magic receding. “This is Wintermere. Halven said in the journal page he heard the voices and he went to Wintermere.”

That made sense. It also made sense that we were all looking at part of the frozen lake considering we were underground and the lake surrounded Nivara Hall.

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

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

Aster would know the Grand Magister’s Water magic signature with Ice Dragons being creatures made of both Water and Air magic. But who did the second signature of Water magic belong to?

We all took stuttering breaths. My mind worked over all the details, trying to piece it together.

“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.” I looked between Aster and Rielle. “But have you felt her magic in Wintermere before?”

Both shook their head.

Aster looked at 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.” Ardorion gave a quick smile before dropping it. “There’s Fire magic, too. In the ice. Kind of like the Firebird. Not exactly. Similar, though.”

I groaned. I was tired of the mysteries never solving themselves. But Fire magic? That didn’t make sense. I’d expect Water and Moon magic with a frozen lake, but Fire was the antithesis of both of those magics.

Shaking out my hand, I approached the wall of ice, glancing briefly at Halven. Guide me, my friend.

Using the spell from my ancestors, I delved into Wintermere. I searched for Veyn’s familiar signature or any Wood magic.

Nothing.

I released the spell and faced my frozen friend for a moment. Wood magic existed only inside the room, in his ice. This meant Veyn had been here and had something to do with Halven’s imprisonment. The pain sharpened in my chest.

I had thought it a coincidence that he’d returned when Halven disappeared. Now I knew he’d only come back for Halven. Not for me. But what had he been doing? He couldn’t have come back just to do this to our friend.

“Garnexis?” I asked. “Any Metal magic in the room or in the lake?”

The Metal Fae shook her head. “None.”

I faced the group, the few pieces of this mystery forming a terrible picture. “So, there’s powerful Water, Moon, and Fire magic inside the lake itself. 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.”

“Veyn,” I said, breath thinner now. “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.”

As I said Veyn’s name, my heart ached. The leaf he had given me, the way he had looked at me during the dance… he had been trying to lead me here, to show me this. To ask for help maybe. Hopefully. I just can’t fathom the idea that Veyn has something to do with all of this.

I took a deep breath, voicing the unavoidable conclusion. “Lady Isa knew where Halven was this whole time. 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?”

Rielle’s voice came soft. “Why was Halven even here?”

Garnexis lifted the newssheet. “The voices.”

“He followed them,” I 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 Ardorion and Garnexis had found at the shore of Wintermere. The same glyph Halven had written into his journal over and over.

Rielle gasped, her eyes fixed on the newssheet still in Garnexis’s hand. “Turn it over.”

On the back was another article, and a picture. My breath caught. It was Lady Isa, standing beside Neir at the edge of Wintermere.

“Neir,” Reille whispered.

Her hands, which had flown to her mouth, dropped to her sides, clenched into fists. Fury replaced the grief in her face. I had never seen my gentle friend look so angry.

“I wasn’t sure before,” she said, her voice trembling with rage. “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?” My voice stayed low. “Maybe he meant the lake.”

Rielle only stared at the picture.

“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, looking up, fire in her eyes. “If he spoke the truth, then it’s all connected to Wintermere. Or he’s lying.”

All the implications were staggering. “What we know is Lady Isa, Veyn, and Neir have all been here, and they know something of what’s going on. And they haven’t told anyone.”

Ardorion shoved through papers to grasp something beneath them. He held up a familiar spoon, engraved. Isa always used these spoons. “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?” I said. I rubbed my chest when the pain struck again. “They could be working together.”

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

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

A new, more immediate fear settled over us.

Ardorion started to gather the papers, rearranging everything. “I don’t want to end up as an ice cube for standing in the wrong place.” He wiped his hands on his robes. “Let’s get out of here.”

After one last look at our frozen friend, we fled the chamber, the heavy door swinging shut behind us.

“We have to help him,” Rielle whispered as we hurried down the hallway.

I gripped her hand to give it a reassuring squeeze, but the image of Halven’s terrified face burned into my mind. “We will.”

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

My voice didn’t have strength left for anything more than a nod.

Halven was alive. But the truth was colder than the ice he was trapped in.

Some questions can’t be answered in writing. Not fully. Not honestly. What I learned from Veyn... what I saw in his eyes, what he wouldn’t say... It’s not in this log, but I left it somewhere you can still find it. Your packet should tell you where. If not, check in with the record keepers.