And this time, something came through.
Not a full image.
A fragment.
She is sitting. Small. Too small for the chair. Her legs don’t reach the floor; they dangle helplessly, bare feet swinging inches above the stone. Her wrists—bound.
The pressure of restraints digs into her skin, not painful yet, but firm. Unyielding. There’s a table beside her, metal instruments laid out with clinical precision—thin rods, glass vials, something that looks like a needle but longer, crueler. She doesn’t understand what they are. She only knows they are meant for her.
And in the corner—
A boy.
Watching. Still. Silent.Older. Fourteen.
His expression is not cruel. That’s the worst part. It’s… controlled. Curious. As if he is trying to understand something important. As if she is a puzzle he has been given permission to solve.
The memory snapped.
Lyra staggered back a step, her hand slipping from the wall. Her pulse slammed once, hard, then steadied. No panic. No collapse. Only the cold, wild certainty that the memory was real—and that it was not simply about the corridor.
It was about him.
She left the corridor immediately, walking back calmly; she was no longer in a hurry.
Because now she understood something that changed everything.
This wasn’t something Caelum had built around her after she arrived at Virelune Collegium.
This had started long before.
* * *
Adrian was waiting.
Not by accident.
He stood at the top of the stairwell leading back toward the main academic wing, one shoulder against the stone, arms crossed. When she emerged, his gaze locked onto her immediately—sharp, searching, all softness long since burned away by grief and rage.
“Where were you?” he asked, voice low.
Lyra didn’t stop walking. “Busy.”
He pushed off the wall and fell into step beside her, matching her pace with easy familiarity. “You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
“I already don’t.”
That earned him a brief, humourless exhale.
“Then this won’t change anything,” he said. “They’re not just presenting anomalies at the gala.”
“I know.”
Adrian stopped.
Lyra kept walking another step before turning slightly, just enough to look back at him.
His expression had shifted—just barely.
