Kai:
I have scoured the Academy’s library for three nights straight, and the place is beginning to taste of failure.
Dust bites the back of my throat. Ancient leather spines leer from the shelves, titles half–eaten by time. I’ve pulled every index, every brittle scroll, every forbidden ledger that might breathe a hint of what Isadora Gravelle really is—and every time I end up staring at blank answers.
The sun sank hours ago. The tall windows bleed only moonlight now, silver and cold, pooling on the marble floor like spilt mercury.
I should quit. I should.
Instead, an idea slithers through me like a spark: the Scriptorium.
Not the public archives. Her scriptorium. The private alcoves only a handful of professors and Isadora herself ever haunt—sealed, whispered about, older than the Ac
