The third day at Blackthorn began under a bruised sky. Rain had not stopped since Sera's arrival, and the sound of it had already become part of the academy's rhythm: steady, unrelenting, as if the heavens themselves were mourning.
Classes were tedious—rituals of history, arithmetic, rhetoric. Lessons delivered in monotone by instructors who looked more like undertakers than teachers. The students scribbled notes obediently, though many wore the same glassy expression as if their minds were elsewhere.
Sera could not focus. The words blurred across the page, drowned beneath the echo of the mirror's plea. Find us. It looped endlessly in her mind, burrowing deeper each time she tried to ignore it.
By midafternoon, she couldn't stand it any longer.
When the bell rang to dismiss them, she slipped out of the crowd, heart hammering as she ducked down a quieter hall. She needed to know more about the academy, about the Hollow whispers that clung to its walls. And if there was one place that might hold answers, it was the library.
The library was a cathedral of silence.
Towering shelves reached the ceiling, stacked with volumes so old they looked ready to crumble. Dust hung in the air, caught in the pale light filtering through high stained-glass windows. The smell of parchment and wax was overwhelming, rich and musty.
Sera stepped carefully between the rows, her boots muffled against the carpet. Students dotted the tables here and there, bent over books, their whispers low. But even their voices seemed subdued, as if the library itself demanded reverence.
She scanned the shelves—histories, sciences, theology, all carefully labeled. None of it would tell her what she wanted. She needed the academy's secrets, not its lessons.
Her gaze drifted upward. On the second floor, a narrow balcony circled the library, lined with darker shelves. A staircase in the corner wound toward it, half-hidden by shadow.
Sera moved toward it before she could talk herself out of it.
The air grew colder as she climbed. The second floor was deserted, the lamps unlit. Here, the books looked older, their spines cracked, titles faded to near illegibility.
And at the far end, behind a heavy iron gate, she found it: a locked section.
The gate was marked with the academy's crest, thorns curling around the lock like warning claws.
Sera pressed her fingers against the bars. The metal was icy, and for a heartbeat she thought she heard a hiss—like breath escaping.
A rational voice in her mind urged her to walk away. But the other voice, the whisper from the mirror was louder. Find us.
Her hand hovered near the lock when a voice startled her.
"You really don't know how to stay out of trouble, do you?"
Sera spun. Rowan Vey lounged against a shelf, a book in hand, though his eyes were fixed entirely on her.
"Do you follow me everywhere?" she snapped.
He smirked. "Don't flatter yourself. I come here for peace and quietness. Imagine my surprise to find you poking around the one place you definitely shouldn't be."
"Then you should leave."
"Funny. I was about to say the same to you." He stepped closer, his grin fading just slightly. "That gate isn't for show. People who push too far past it… don't come back the same."
Sera met his gaze, unflinching. "You sound like every other whisper in this place. Empty threats."
"Not threats but warnings." Rowan leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper. "Blackthorn doesn't forgive curiosity. And it never forgets."
For a moment, Sera thought she saw something flicker behind his eyes. Fear quickly buried itself.
Before she could respond, footsteps echoed below. A librarian's sharp voice called, "Upstairs is closed! Down, both of you!"
Rowan's grin returned as if nothing had passed between them. "Saved by the bell. Come on, new girl. Before they decide we're overdue."
Reluctantly, Sera let him pull her away from the gate. But as she descended the stairs, the whisper clung to her still.
Find us.
That night, she dreamed.
The mirror filled her vision, its cracks bleeding shadow. She reached out, and her reflection reached back except the eyes were not hers. They were hollow, empty pits, and the voice that spilled from them was a chorus of many.
We are bound. We are waiting. We are yours.
Her reflection's hand broke through the glass, seizing her wrist with icy fingers. Sera screamed and jolted awake in her bed, drenched in sweat.
The cracked mirror across the room was silent. Elara stirred but did not wake.
Sera sat trembling, clutching her arm. The skin was red where the hand had grabbed her.
It wasn't a dream.
The next morning, she dragged herself through classes, distracted and restless. By lunch, she could no longer contain the storm inside her.
She slammed her tray onto the table, startling Elara.
"Alright," Sera hissed. "Tell me everything you know about this place. The real stories. Not the rules they feed us."
Elara blinked, surprised by the outburst. "That's… not something people usually talk about."
"I'm not people ok"
Elara hesitated, biting her lip. Then, leaning in, she whispered, "They say the academy is alive. That it watches, sometimes it chooses students and marks them."
Sera's heart thudded painfully. "And what happens to them?"
Elara's eyes darkened. "They disappear. Sometimes a body turns up. Sometimes nothing does."
Sera swallowed hard, her throat dry.
Marked. That's what it felt like. As though the academy had reached through the mirror and laid claim to her.
Before she could ask more, the bell rang. Students filed out, chatter filling the air again. Elara gave her a worried look but said nothing further.
Sera clenched her fists. If the academy thought it could claim her, it was wrong.
If she was marked, she would find out why.
And she would fight back.
That evening, she returned to the library. Alone this time. The locked gate waited, silent and cold.
She pressed her hand against it, bracing for the hiss, for the chill. But this time, the metal burned hot, searing her palm.
And from the cracks of the gate's crest, whispers seeped like smoke.
Find us. Free us.
Her knees nearly buckled.
The lock clicked once, as though something on the other side had stirred.
Sera jerked her hand away, breathing hard.
This was no longer a curiosity. It was an invitation.