Professor Maldric:
The corridors breathe when night falls.
Stone exhales damp air, the sconces gutter like tired hearts, and the Academy tilts toward silence—my favorite hour. It’s when secrets grow loud enough for a man to hear.
I wait in the antechamber of my study, the one buried deepest in the west wing. Only a single lantern burns. Its light is a tarnished coin, throwing long, distorted shadows across the shelves of arcane texts. The room smells of cedar smoke and old parchment.
I feel the air grow heavy, charred almost. I know who is it. It's her.
I wind down the corridors lazily under I find the door I'm looking for.
The scriptorium.
I make a quick rap on the old wood of the frame.
I hear her before I see her.
The hesitant tap of barefeet on stone. A pause outside the door
