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"This wasn't destruction,"

"No." He shakes his head. "It was alteration."

I follow the channels beneath the Academy. They resemble the hidden map we found inside the ward book. Outer markers feeding inner anchors. Every line eventually converges beneath a circular chamber. The label has been scraped away. Again.

"What was there?" I ask.

"I don't know."

I compare the two maps. The chamber sits below the western academic wing. More specifically— "Dominion." Rhyven's eyes follow my finger. The current Hall of Sovereignty rests directly above the erased room. "There was another hall beneath it."

"According to the earlier plan."

"Does it have a name anywhere else?"

"Not yet."

I reach for the catalogue. The original room number appears in the architectural index. Beside it: Hall of Dominion. I read it twice. "Our class is called Dominion."

"Yes."

"But the room is the Hall of Sovereignty."

"Now."

The single word makes the skin along my arms tighten. "When did the name change?"

Rhyven searches the date markings. "After the Silent War."

Another alteration. Another piece of history made cleaner by removing what came before. We return to the student records together. The catalogue lists three personal journals from the first interruption period. Only two sit on the shelf.

The first belongs to a third-year healer. The second to an Academy clerk. The student journal is missing. I check the number again. "Wrong shelf?"

Rhyven runs his fingers across the spines. "No."

"How do you know?"

He points. "The dust." A narrow space interrupts the otherwise even grey line along the shelf. Something occupied it recently enough that less dust settled behind it. Not yesterday. Not years ago either. The outline is still visible.

"Someone removed it."

"Or never returned it." Rhyven adds.

"In a sealed archive?" His expression answers for him. I look back at the catalogue.

The journal belongs to: Ilara Menn. The same first-year whose statement I read. A note beneath the entry references a duplicate excerpt stored with personal effects. We search the cabinets. At the bottom of one, beneath a bundle of letters tied with brittle cord, I find a smaller journal. Not the missing original. A partial copy made before preservation.

Its first pages contain ordinary things. A complaint about the cold in the western dormitory. A description of a professor who speaks too quickly. A list of classmates she hopes to know better. For several minutes, history disappears. Ilara becomes real. She misses her younger brother. She is frightened of combat assessment but refuses to admit it to her roommate. She once stole three pastries from the dining hall because dinner portions were too small. Her words are impatient, observant and alive. Then the entries change. The wards went quiet again today. Only for a moment. Professor says old magic shifts in winter, but it is not winter. Another. Tessa forgot my name. She remembered after. She cried harder than I did. Another. We were told not to discuss what happened in class. They said speculation creates panic. Perhaps it does. Silence creates something worse. My fingers become cold around the page. Rhyven reads over my shoulder. Neither of us comments. The final intact entry is shorter. The writing less controlled. The monsters were never the first thing we lost. I turn the page. Torn. Not damaged by age. Removed. The next page begins halfway through a sentence. —first came the silence. Another page is missing. Then: They keep asking whether we saw anyone. We did not. That is the problem. There is nothing to describe. The remaining entries have all been cut out. Cleanly. Close to the binding.

Rhyven takes the journal carefully and examines the spine. "Knife."

"Recently?" I ask.

"No." He studies the exposed stitching. "But after preservation."

"Someone came into the archive and removed the ending."

"Yes."