She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me carefully.
“Are you serious?”
I nodded. “I went to see Nova about it, and with everything she did…well, let’s just say all roads led to fae.”
“I can’t even fathom what that means.”
“It’s pretty exciting if it comes true.”
She furrowed her brows. “You mean if the fae shows itself?”
I nodded. “One step at a time.”
“That could be huge, but I don’t want to get my hopes up.” She turned on her heel and led me through the main corridor.
The Academy had always felt like it held its breath while you walked through it as though the halls listened. Today was no different. The sconces flickered to life as we passed, one by one.
We didn’t go toward the reading room or the south wing where the newer texts lived. She took me deeper into the Academy, where staircases roamed and hallways flipped.
Past a map room, past the stairwell I used to avoid because it narrowed as you looked at it, through a door that had always looked like a supply closet.
It wasn’t.
A staircase behind it was curved and lined in smooth, dark stone. The walls were damp and cool. I followed Bella down without asking questions, but I could feel the shift in pressure, the tug of something old.
I hadn’t explored this portion of the Academy before.
“This part of the library wasn’t sealed exactly,” she said over her shoulder. “Just… left alone. I’m unsure if we’re supposed to know about it. It’s like the basement.”
“I don’t think the Academy lets us go anywhere it doesn’t want us.”
“Hope so.”
At the bottom, she led me into a long, windowless room. The walls were lined with books, but not the standard-issue kind. These weren’t catalogued or labeled. Some didn’t even have proper covers.
And a stack of journals was in the middle of the room on a wide oak table. Handwritten names. Frayed at the edges. Bound in twine or ribbon or nothing at all.
“This is what I wanted to show you,” she said, stepping aside.
I looked down at them. There must’ve been thirty, maybe more. None of them had proper titles. I reached out and ran my hand along the top journal’s spine. The leather was soft and worn, the kind that had been handled often.
“Where did you find these?” I asked.
“They were buried under some old disciplinary records,” she said. “Stuff no one wanted to deal with. But this… these aren’t school logs. They’re personal. Diaries. Notes. And some of them match your grandmother’s handwriting.”
I didn’t move.
“Not all of them are hers,” Bella added. “But enough are.”
The air felt heavier suddenly. I took the top journal and opened it carefully.
The handwriting was slanted and neat, looping across the page in a confident hand. No dates. It reminded me of the journal she kept in the main library that described when my dad went missing.
I scanned the page. It was full of speculation. Thoughts about a disruption in the Academy’s heartbeat. Notes about checking with the fae in the northern wood, so this must have been before the curse. A half-scribbled name that had been crossed out hard enough to tear the paper.
“It’s like she was tracking something,” I murmured.
Bella nodded. “That’s what I thought too.”
