Blackwood Academy did not wake the way ordinary places did.
There were no bells echoing through the corridors at dawn, no shouted reminders or hurried footsteps pounding staircases. Instead, the school seemed to stir—slowly, deliberately—like a creature opening one eye at a time.
Elara realized this as she stood at the tall window of her dorm room, watching fog drift across the inner courtyard below. Students appeared in ones and twos, moving with quiet purpose, their coats dark, their conversations muted. No one laughed loudly. No one ran.
It was as if the academy demanded restraint even from breath.
She dressed carefully, choosing her least-worn sweater and smoothing her hair until it lay flat against her shoulders. The mirror reflected a version of herself that still felt temporary, as though she were borrowing someone else's life and might be asked to return it at any moment.
The carved symbol by the window caught her eye again.
She touched it, just once, then forced herself to step away.
Breakfast was served in the Great Hall, a space so vast it swallowed sound. Long tables stretched beneath vaulted ceilings, illuminated by chandeliers that glowed like suspended constellations. Portraits lined the walls here too—more of them than she had seen the night before—and she could have sworn some of the eyes followed her as she entered.
Elara chose a seat near the end of a table, hoping to disappear into the wood and stone.
She didn't.
Conversation shifted subtly around her, the way water moves around a stone dropped into a stream. Students glanced her way with practiced discretion. Some looked curious. Others… appraising.
"She's the scholarship girl."
The whisper was quiet but intentional.
Elara kept her eyes on her plate, her appetite evaporating. She had expected this, she told herself. Of course they would know. Blackwood didn't admit outsiders quietly.
A boy across the table watched her over the rim of his coffee cup. His expression was polite, unreadable. When their eyes met, he inclined his head in a faint nod, as though acknowledging an equal rather than a curiosity.
That unsettled her more than the stares.
Classes began promptly at eight.
Her schedule was dense—advanced literature, symbolic logic, ethics, historical cryptography. Subjects that made her pulse quicken with interest even as they tightened something anxious in her chest.
The classrooms were nothing like the ones she knew. No whiteboards. No posters. Just dark wood, tall windows, and instructors who spoke as if every word were being weighed before release.
In Literature, the professor didn't introduce himself. He simply began.
"Language," he said, pacing slowly before the class, "is the oldest form of power."
Elara leaned forward, pen moving rapidly across her notebook.
"It shapes truth. Conceals it. Distorts it. Those who understand language deeply enough can rewrite history without ever lifting a sword."
His gaze flicked briefly to her, sharp and assessing, before moving on.
By midday, her head was spinning—not with confusion, but with exhilaration. Blackwood was everything she had imagined and more. Dangerous, yes. But intoxicating in the way knowledge always was.
It was between classes that she noticed him again.
She was walking through the west corridor, consulting the campus map in her handbook, when she felt it—that prickling sensation between her shoulder blades.
Being watched.
Elara lowered the map and glanced up.
He stood near the arched windows at the far end of the hall, sunlight cutting a pale line across his dark uniform. Tall. Still. His posture was relaxed, but his attention was unmistakably fixed on her.
Lucien Hale.
She knew his name without knowing how. Perhaps it was the way others seemed to orbit him, leaving space unconsciously, or the quiet confidence that clung to him like a tailored coat.
Their eyes met.
This time, he didn't look away.
Elara's instinct was to pretend she hadn't noticed, to resume walking, to shrink back into anonymity. Instead, something stubborn rose in her chest.
She held his gaze.
His expression shifted—not into a smile, but into something like interest sharpened by calculation. Then, unhurried, he pushed off the wall and walked past her.
"Careful," he said softly as he passed. "That corridor doesn't lead where you think it does."
She turned, heart hammering. "What?"
But he was already gone, footsteps fading into the quiet.
The map in her hands suddenly felt inadequate.
The library was older than the academy itself.
That was the rumor, at least, whispered among students in careful tones. Elara believed it the moment she stepped inside.
It smelled like dust and leather and something faintly metallic. Rows of shelves rose into shadows, ladders attached to rails disappearing upward into darkness. The air felt thick, heavy with secrets pressed between pages.
She wandered deeper, her fingers trailing along spines embossed in gold and fading ink.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed once. The sound echoed, distorted, as though swallowed by the stacks.
Elara didn't know what she was looking for until she found it.
A narrow aisle near the back of the lower level ended abruptly in a wall of stone. At first glance, it looked solid. Ordinary.
But she recognized the pattern in the masonry.
Her pulse quickened.
The stones here were older, darker. And carved into one, nearly invisible unless you knew to look, was a familiar symbol.
A circle.
Intersected by a line.
Her breath caught.
She glanced around. The aisle was empty.
Carefully, she pressed her palm against the stone.
Nothing happened.
She exhaled shakily, half-laughing at herself, when her fingers brushed something recessed. A groove. A hidden seam.
The wall shifted with a soft click.
Elara stumbled back as a narrow panel slid inward, revealing a space no wider than a closet. Inside, tucked onto a small stone ledge, lay a single object.
A journal.
Its leather cover was cracked with age, darkened by time and use. Symbols were etched into the front—not written, but carved—their lines faintly glowing as if catching light from somewhere deeper than the room allowed.
Elara reached for it, hands trembling.
The moment her fingers touched the cover, the glow intensified.
She sucked in a sharp breath and pulled the journal free.
Footsteps echoed suddenly from the main aisle.
Elara froze.
She shoved the journal into her bag just as the panel slid shut on its own, sealing with a sound like a held breath released.
A shadow fell across the aisle entrance.
Lucien Hale stepped into view.
He took in her flushed face, her tight grip on her bag, the faint dust clinging to her sleeves. His eyes lingered, sharp and knowing.
"You found it quickly," he said.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
"Found what?"
A corner of his mouth curved—not into a smile, but into something more dangerous.
"The question," he replied softly, "is whether you'll survive knowing the answer."
END OF CHAPTER TWO