Secrets Don’t Sleep
1396 Words
🩶 Isla
Sleep didn’t come easy in a place like this.
The ceiling creaked in the wrong places. Not like pipes or heating, maybe like footfalls. I think or maybe I'm just being paranoid.
No one was supposed to be up there.
The pendant still hung around my neck, a cold weight even under my shirt. I hadn’t dared take it off since I opened that strange black box last night, wax-sealed with a crescent moon and no explanation except a warning carved into stone:
For protection. When the bond begins to burn.
I told myself I didn’t believe in magic. That this school was just strange and old, not… haunted. Not cursed.
But the way the shadows moved in the corners?
The way my heart knew — just knew — that someone had been standing outside my door?
Something was wrong with Ebonridge Academy.
And I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to figure out what.
-----------------------
Eva stirred in the bed beside mine, her tiny form curled under the covers. Her breathing was soft, rhythmic, but too shallow for comfort. I pressed my hand to her forehead. Still warm. Still pale.
She had no idea how much danger we were really in.
I hadn’t told her about the box. About the figure in the trees. About the wolf.
What could I say?
That something in the forest knew my name?
That the man with silver eyes had looked at me like he recognized my soul — and wanted to rip it apart?
No.
I had to protect her.
I was all she had left.
-----------------------
By 4 AM, I gave up.
Eva was still sound asleep, her breathing soft and shallow, curled under the velvet throw I’d tucked around her the night before. I brushed a hand over her forehead — still warm, but not fevered.
After leaving her a note, I slipped quietly into the hall, boots silent against the cold stone.
I needed to walk. To breathe.
To feel like the world still made sense.
-----------------
I wandered.
Down long, arched corridors lit only by flickering lanterns, through halls lined with crooked portraits and glass cabinets filled with oddities — bones, feathers, wax-sealed scrolls.
Ebonridge didn’t feel like a school.
Eventually, I found myself in front of a heavy door at the end of the corridor, half-hidden behind a crumbling tapestry. It was banded in rusted iron and etched with unfamiliar sigils that shimmered faintly beneath the lamplight.
There was no plaque. No keyhole.
But something about it called to me.
I pressed a hand against the cool metal.
I pull my hand away. It thrummed — faintly, like an electrical current.
------------------
That’s when I heard it.
A footstep. Behind me.
I spun, heart hammering.
A figure stood at the far end of the corridor, tall and still, mostly shadow. The sconces didn’t reach far enough to light his face, but I caught a gleam of silver where his eyes should’ve been — moonlit and unblinking.
My breath caught in my throat.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.
His voice was low. Polished. Edged like broken glass.
I straightened my shoulders, summoning what little courage I had left. “Neither are you.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Only after a long pause did he take a slow step forward, the heels of his boots echoing too loud on the stone.
“This wing is sealed for a reason,” he said. “It doesn’t open for just anyone.”
“Then maybe you should report me,” I replied, forcing my voice to stay steady. “I’m sure the staff would love to hear someone’s lurking around the halls before sunrise.”
Another pause.
Then, very softly, I heard it — a quiet exhale that might’ve been a laugh. Dry. Surprised.
He stepped into the light.
Not fully — just enough for the shadows to peel back and show me more than I wanted.
He was tall. Not just in height, but in presence. The kind that makes the air fold around him like it’s obeying some unspoken rule. His coat was black, tailored close to his frame. Sharp shoulders. Clean lines. He looked like he could command a battlefield or vanish into one.
Dark hair — not slick, not styled. Just… fallen. A few strands fell loose over his forehead, the rest tousled like he didn’t care or hadn’t looked in a mirror for days.
His jaw was sharp enough to cut, cheekbones like they’d been carved from frost. Pale skin, too pale, like moonlight soaked into him and never left.
But his eyes—
Silver.
Not grey. Not blue. Silver.
Reflective, unnatural. Like something had burned through them centuries ago and left nothing but metal behind.
Predatory.
Not the kind of gaze you could meet and walk away unchanged.
He wasn’t beautiful — not in the usual sense.
There was no warmth to soften his edges.
No smile. No welcome.
Just cold perfection and the suggestion of violence.
He looked like he’d been made to haunt, not to hold.
And even though every instinct screamed turn around, my body stayed rooted.
Something about him made my pulse thunder and my breath catch.
“Who are you?” I asked, voice quiet now.
He tilted his head slightly. “That depends. Who are you?”
“I asked first.”
“And I don’t answer to students who sneak around restricted wings before dawn.”
I bristled. “I didn’t sneak. I wandered.”
He looked at the door behind me — the one with iron bands and warning etched into every inch of it.
Then back at me.
“You wandered to the oldest sealed archive in Ebonridge?”
“Is that what this is?” I asked. “A library?”
He didn’t reply.
But that was answer enough.
----------------------
I looked again at the door.
It didn’t look like any library I’d ever seen.
I turned back to the stranger. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”
He studied me.
And then said, simply, “Lucien.”
Just the name. Like it should mean something.
It didn’t.
But it stuck.
--------------------
“You work here?” I asked.
“No.”
“Student?”
A pause. “Not anymore.”
“So why are you here?”
His jaw tightened. “Because.”
I blinked. That was… vague. It made my stomach twist.
“So you’re what? Ebonridge’s resident ghost?”
His lips curved — barely — like the idea amused him.
“I’m not the one drawn to locked doors in cursed halls,” he said, voice quieter now. “You should be careful, Isla.”
The sound of my name in his mouth made something cold curl down my spine.
“I didn’t tell you my name.”
“No,” he agreed. “You didn’t.”
--------------------
My heartbeat thundered in my ears.
“Have you been watching me?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
Lucien didn’t answer.
But he didn’t deny it either.
He stepped closer — I felt the gravity of him. The heat. The storm.
“Tell me something,” he said. “How does a girl with no background, no family history, no mag… end up here in the most isolated part of the academy?”
My breath caught.
“How do you know—?”
“It's my job to know. You can't be here. I know what they do with people like you. And this,” he gestured to the corridor, “isn’t it.”
I backed away a step, bumping lightly into the iron door.
Lucien’s expression darkened.
“I’m not your enemy,” he said. “But you need to be more careful where you go poking around. Ebonridge doesn't like to be woken up.”
“What is this place really?” I asked, barely able to form the words.
Lucien looked at me then — not cold, not cruel, but… tired. Haunted.
And he said, softly:
“A cage for people like us.”
Then he walked away — vanishing into the shadows like he’d never been there at all.
I didn’t try the door after that. But I didn’t forget it either.
Or about him.
Or the way he looked at me.
- Writer
