I glance at Nolan. He’s already mulling it over in his head, I can tell. And I hate how much I want to say yes.
But I shake my head. “It’s not smart. I just survived one attack—I don’t need to walk into another.”
Tamsin slumps dramatically, like I just ruined her birthday. “Ugh, fine. Be responsible. I’ll go alone. Get eaten by a book. Thenyou’llfeel bad.”
“I already feel bad,” I mutter. “I just don’t want to feeldead.”
But even as the conversation shifts and Nolan starts talking about his theory of Veil line ruptures again, I feel the tug in my gut. The itch that saysshe’s right.There might be something in there. Something I need.
I try to sleep. I really do. But every time I close my eyes, my mind pulls me back to the same thought:What if Tamsin’s right?What if there’s something behind those sealed doors that explainswhythe Veil touched me? Why I can’t control it? Why I’m even here?
The mark on my skin pulses faintly, never painful but never gone. A quiet reminder. A question with no answer. And the Forbidden Wing might hold one.
I sit up in bed, the room quiet except for the soft rustle of curtains, a few snoring students, and the occasional creak of the old dorm walls. My boots are still by the foot of the bed, like they’ve beenwaitingfor me to make up my mind.
By the time I step into the corridor, the halls are mostly empty, night settling over the school like a spell. Tamsin is already waiting by the statue of the veiled mage, her arms crossed and a smug smile on her face.
“You lasted longer than I thought,” she whispers. “I had money on ten minutes after lights-out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumble. “Don’t say ‘I told you so’yet. This could still be the worst idea I’ve ever agreed to.”
“Oh, it absolutely is,” she says cheerfully. “But aren’t you just dying to find out why?”
She hands me a borrowed cloak; one with a faint shimmer of magic stitched into the lining, and we move, shadows stitched to our heels, toward the one place in the academy we’re not supposed to go.
The corridor leading to the Forbidden Wing is colder than the rest of the school. The kind of cold that doesn’t come from drafty stone walls. It’s the kind that creeps under your skin, whispering that you’re not supposed to be here. Like whatever magic they used is warning us off like an electric fence. But we push forward.
Tamsin’s steps are quieter than I thought they’d be. She’s unusually serious now, her usual humor muted by the possibilities of whatever we’re about to find. The shadows stretch long across the hall as we stop in front of the door.
It’s ancient.
The kind of ancient that makes your bones ache just looking at it—covered in layered wards and carvings in languages I don’t recognize. Not locked. But sealed. With magic so old it hums under the surface.
“Well, this is where I bail,” Tamsin says lightly. “I’m reckless, not cursed.”
I roll my eyes and snort at her attempt at a joke. Before stepping closer despite every logical part of me screaming not to. But the mark on my arm has other plans. It pulses—once, hard—and I suck in a deep breath.
The second I place my hand on the doorknob, the door responds. Not to a key. Not to a spell. Tome. Like I’m the key.
Lines of runes light up across the surface like a circuit being completed, and a low rumble echoes beneath the stones as the seals begin to unravel. Tamsin lets out a low, terrified laugh.
“Oh good,” she mutters. “Definitely not ominous at all.”
I don’t move. Can’t move. Because my mark—my Veilburn—isburning. Not painfully. Not like before. This time, it feels like it’s trying tospeak.Like it’s trying to tell me something.
Magic lashes out from the door in a sudden flare of light, and for a heartbeat, I’m not in the hallway anymore. I’m nowhere.
I see the Veil. Not just feel it. Endless. Vast. Splintering at the edges. And something else, something watching me through the cracks.
I collapse to my knees, gasping, and the vision snaps away like a string being cut. My mark is still glowing, the edges of it too bright to look at.
Tamsin is crouched beside me, pale and wide-eyed. “Linds… what the hell was that?”
I look up at the now-open doorway, magic swirling faintly beyond it.
“I think,” I breathe, “we just opened something we’re not supposed to.”
She exhales beside me. “This feels like the start of a ghost story.”
