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"Do you think it's them?" I ask.

"No." The answer is immediate. I wait. He looks toward the inheritance panels. Six peoples. Six forms of magic. Every one of them touched by the same absence. "I think we've reached the point where believing it's impossible is more dangerous than considering it."

That is not fear. It is worse. Reason.

"What if Professor Neris is right?" I ask. "What if something is making the incidents resemble the Hollowborn?"

"Then we find out why."

"And if it is them?"

Rhyven's hand closes briefly over the key inside his pocket. "Then history lied about more than how they disappeared."

The doors unlock beneath his touch. The corridor outside is full of students changing classes. Conversation. Movement. Life. None of them know about the letters beneath the Hall of Lineage. The wards that stopped answering. The professors who forgot where they stood. The students whose magic vanished and returned violently. They do not know the Council has been receiving warnings for weeks.

They do not know the word Hollowborn is being spoken again behind locked doors. Rhyven steps into the corridor. I follow. Tomorrow night, we enter the Silent Archive. Today, we return to class. And somehow, pretending the world has not changed feels more difficult than facing the possibility that it has.

Chapter Seventeen

Professor Aldren writes a single sentence across the black stone board. History rarely repeats itself. People do. The room is silent except for the scratching of quills. No one speaks. Not because they are afraid to. Because everyone has already learned that whenever Professor Aldren begins a lecture with one sentence, the rest of the morning will somehow dismantle everything we thought we understood. He sets the chalk aside. "Why," he asks, "do kingdoms fall?"

A wolf in the front row raises his hand immediately. "Military defeat."

Professor Aldren nods. "Occasionally."

Another student answers. "Poor leadership."

"Sometimes."

A siren speaks next. "Political corruption."

"Certainly." He folds his hands behind his back and slowly walks between the rows. "You have all named methods." He stops beneath the enormous map of Varethia covering the back wall. "I asked for the cause." No one answers. Professor Aldren studies the map for a long moment before speaking again. "Kingdoms do not collapse because one battle is lost." His voice is calm. "They collapse because, long before that battle, enough people stop believing the institutions protecting them." His fingers rest lightly against the western mountains. "The army." A different point. "The Council." Another. "The Academy." He turns toward us. "When trust fractures..." He lets the silence finish the thought. "Everything else follows."

The words settle heavily over the room. I write them automatically. Not because they are part of today's lesson. Because they feel painfully relevant.

"Eirea." Nyra's whisper barely reaches me. I keep my eyes on my notes.

"Hm?"

"You're writing the same sentence."

I blink. She is right. The phrase When trust fractures... appears three times across the page in nearly identical handwriting. I hadn't noticed. I quietly draw one line through the duplicates.

"Sorry." I whisper.

"You've apologized four times since this morning."

"I have?"

"You've also stared at the same paragraph for almost ten minutes."

Heat creeps into my cheeks. "I didn't realize."

"I know."

There is no accusation in her voice. Only concern. Professor Aldren continues explaining how historical narratives are shaped by the people who survive them. Usually, I would be fascinated. Today every sentence competes with another memory. Letters spread across Professor Neris' desk. Blood without history. A black key resting in Rhyven's hand. Thirty-eight reports. No answers.

Nyra nudges my elbow gently. "Eirea."