Elara Vance POV
The weight of the envelope in my hand felt like a lead weight, With a sharp, decisive motion, I shoved the envelope back into the deepest pocket of my backpack. I wasn't going to dwell on this any longer. Panic was a luxury I couldn't afford, and I had a lead that was freezing over by the second.
I had to find Silas Thorne.
The name had been appearing in the margins of my research like a recurring nightmare. I turned toward the towering, oak shelves of the West Wing, my eyes scanning the spines for the heavy, leather-bound school yearbooks. I was moving too fast, my mind three steps ahead of my feet, and I didn't see the figure emerging from the shadow of the Biography section.
Thud.
I bumped my head hard into someone's chest. It felt like walking into a stone wall.
"Ouch," I hissed, rubbing my forehead. As I lifted my head, my eyes clashed with a middle-aged man. He had a crown of salt-and-pepper hair, and he stood just about a foot taller than me, casting a long shadow over the aisle. He didn't look angry; instead, a small, knowing smile played on his lips.
"Look where you are going, kid," he said. His voice was like dry parchment rubbing together. He turned back to the shelves, his fingers trailing over the spines of the books with a disturbing level of affection. He touched them as if they were some sort of beautiful girl or a sweet, decadent meal he was about to consume. It made my skin crawl.
"I guess you must be the librarian," I said, forced a smile to hide my discomfort.
"Of course, young lady," he replied, finally turning his full attention to me. His eyes were sharp, missing nothing. "Are you perhaps looking for a book? Or are you looking for something... else?"
"Yes," I replied, letting out a sigh of relief that I had found him at all. If anyone knew the history of the students here, it was the man who lived among their records. "I'm looking for the school yearbook. Specifically the editions from five years ago."
"Ah, the archives of the lost," he mused. "It's on my desk. I was just reviewing it myself, but you can have it for now. Knowledge should be shared, shouldn't it?"
I nodded, stepping back as he gestured toward the heavy mahogany desk at the center of the room. "You must love the books a lot," I said, gesturing at the way he looked at the shelves with such hunger.
"Ah, yes," he replied, his smile widening. "Our books are very precious; they require a lot of care... and feeding."
Feeding? "Weird," I muttered under my breath, turning away before he could see the look of confusion on my face. I walked toward his desk, the floorboards groaning under my boots. The yearbook was there, thick and imposing, but my eyes were immediately drawn to something laying next to it.
It was an old parchment. It looked worn out, the edges frayed and yellowed by time, as if it had been handled by a thousand different hands. I let out a shaky breath as my curiosity got the best of me.
I picked up the parchment and flipped a page open. At first, my heart sank. The handwriting was hilarious—a chaotic mess of loops and slashes that made it impossible to make out a single coherent sentence. It looked like the scribblings of a madman. I kept flipping through the pages, my frustration growing, until I reached the very back.
I paused. My heart stopped.
There, in the center of the page, was jagged writing that stood out from the rest. It was clear enough for me to read, and the sight of it made the blood drain from my face.
LEO VANCE — written in a deep, aggressive red ink.
SILAS THORNE — written in a cold, precise green ink.
"What the hell," I muttered. My eyes went madly wild, darting between the two names. Red and green. A warning and a command.
The heavy, rhythmic steps of the librarian echoed from the next aisle. He was coming back.
In a panic, I hurriedly dropped the parchment exactly where I'd found it, stepping a few meters away from the desk to look like I was just admiring the architecture. My heart was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it. As soon as his back was turned to adjust a lamp, I turned and bolted out of the library.
I dashed madly through the halls, my heartbeat increasing with every step. My mind was screaming. What the hell was my brother and the mysterious Silas Thorne's name doing on a fucking page in the librarian's private ledger? Why was Leo's name written in red—the color of blood, the color of a finished debt?
As I galloped through the halls of Blackwood, the cold air biting at my lungs, my phone chimed in my pocket. I slowed down, leaning against a stone pillar to catch my breath as I pulled the device out.
One new message from an unknown number.
"The Blacksmith."
I paused at the text, my brow furrowed. "The blacksmith? What should I go to the blacksmith store for?" I muttered, clearly confused. There wasn't even a blacksmith shop on the campus map.
But then, I gasped. A certain thought hit me like a physical blow. The "Blacksmith" wasn't a store. It was a code. It was the nickname used for the man who forged the blackened coins. I had seen it on a dark forbidden website a year ago
Third Person POV
Back in the library, the silence returned, thick and suffocating. The librarian began to whistle a low, haunting tune as he walked back to his desk. He trailed his hands over the wood, his fingers sensing the lingering warmth of where Elara had touched the paper.
He didn't look angry that she had pried into his secrets. He looked satisfied.
He picked up the old parchment, the one Elara had just dropped. He took a fountain pen from the adjoining drawer under the table—a silver pen with a nib that looked like a bird's claw. He uncapped it, the blue ink damping the page as he began to write.
He smiled satisfactorily, as if he had just won a trophy in a long, grueling race. He watched the ink dry, his eyes gleaming with a predatory light.
"Finally," he muttered to the empty, shadowed room. "A new refreshment. It has been exactly one year since the last one."
He dropped the parchment on the table and walked away, his whistling echoing through the stacks of books that had seen too many students disappear.
Back on the paper, underneath the names of Leo Vance and Silas Thorne, a single new name had been written in that damp, blue ink. It stood out against the yellowed parchment like a fresh bruise.
ELARA VANCE
The ledger was open. The care was over. The feeding was about to begin.