I didn't remember climbing the stairs.
One moment I was standing beneath Saint Ivy with stone walls pressing in from every direction, candles burning like they had been burning for centuries, masked strangers deciding my fate without ever asking for my name. The next... I was outside. Cold night air hit my face hard enough to make me question whether any of it had happened at all.
The campus looked exactly the same.
Old buildings.
Perfect lawns.
Golden windows glowing against the dark.
Students laughing somewhere in the distance like the world beneath their feet wasn't full of rooms that weren't supposed to exist.
I stood there longer than I should have, staring back toward the old west wing. If I hadn't known what was hidden underneath it now, I would've walked past it tomorrow wit
