ty, soft enough to hush the corridors but not

bed, the low hum of her phone charging the only so

y felt... heavy tonight, like the air itself was charged. Her body ached with exhaustion from her first day-getting

eep came, pull

the dream

old, pressing against her skin. Moonlight barely touched the twisted branches overhead, leaving the g

she s

wo

od several feet away, its gaze fixed on her, ancient and impossible to ignore. Liora's chest tightened. Sh

n she h

e her

e m

t, trembling, yet

e to wa

she whispered aloud, though the words sounded

flected centuries of longing, loss, and sorrow. Liora's heart thum

. before

he hairs on her arms stand on end. She tried again

n it va

her bed, gasping, swea

e table where a bottle of water waited. The cool liquid calmed her throa

gering on the courtyard below. She didn'

he distance, the Crimson Athenaeum rose, dark and silent

th

flickered

trance. Lio

een the trees. They didn't rush. They didn't hide. They walke

Two.

allowed them

ng earlier echoed faintly in her mind: Don't

r bottle. Whatever was happening insi

shadows of the Athenaeum seemed to stretch toward her, and deep in h

f. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that someone-or someth