Chapter 5
Talia
The crystal bed continued glowing beneath my hand.
Thin bands of color moved through the clear frame, gathering beneath my fingers before spreading into the floor. The nearest wall runes awakened in response, their light soft and colorless.
I lifted my hand.
The glow remained.
“This room has been waiting for you,” Rafe said.
I looked over my shoulder. “It responded to all five of us.”
“The corridor did. The bed didn’t light up until you touched it.”
“It could be reacting to the magic left on me by the beam.”
“An ancient wing opened, counted five people, and gave you a crystal bed.” He folded his arms. “But yes, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Leander ignored him and returned to the sealed arch. His hand moved over the place where the entrance had disappeared, searching for a lock or release mechanism.
“We need to reopen this immediately.”
“Do you think they’ve left?” Rafe asked.
“No. I think Malcolm is deciding which wall to break through.”
Torren examined the sleeping chamber before walking back into the common room. He checked both windows, the hearth, and every visible doorway without touching anything unnecessarily.
Sebastian remained near the inscription identifying the Fifth Wing.
He read it again, then looked at me. “How could an entire section of the tower disappear from the plans?”
“It might never have appeared on them.”
“The tower plans are supposed to date from its original construction.”
“Copies of them do,” I said. “I’ve never seen an original.”
“You work in the Hall records.”
“The Hall and the academy maintain separate archives. I can request access, but I can’t walk into a sealed collection because I’m curious.”
Rafe entered the common room. “You might be able to now.”
I glanced at the plain keeper’s badge pinned to my robe. “I don’t think being accidentally struck by Choosing magic grants archive privileges.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “Being named an heir does.”
The word still felt wrong when directed at me.
I removed my work satchel and set it on the table beside the five cups.
Sebastian followed and surveyed the adjoining passages. “We should inventory the rooms before touching anything.”
Rafe picked up one of the cups.
Sebastian took it from him and returned it to its place.
Rafe’s eyebrows rose. “It’s a cup.”
“The wing has been sealed for centuries,” Sebastian said. “Some of these objects could be magically unstable.”
“So could the air. You’re still breathing.”
“Air is necessary.”
“So is drinking.”
“Not from an unknown enchanted vessel.”
“The Chalice of Rhyne removed the drinker’s tongue,” I said.
Rafe looked at the cup.
I allowed him three seconds before adding, “According to a children’s cautionary tale.”
Torren laughed from the doorway.
The sound changed his face more than I expected. The severe control he had maintained since the Choosing loosened, and for a moment he looked younger than the scar through his eyebrow suggested.
Rafe reclaimed the cup from the table without drinking from it. “I liked you better when you were hiding against the wall.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“You found the least noticeable place in the Hall and wore the same color as the stone.”
“It was my assigned position and my keeper’s uniform.”
“An impressive coincidence.”
Light moved through the common-room runes.
Warm gold appeared along the walls, replacing the clear glow from the sleeping chamber.
Rafe looked up.
The color strengthened when his smile returned.
“Interesting,” he said.
“It could be another residual reaction,” I said.
“To your irritation?”
“I am not irritated.”
The runes shifted toward orange.
Rafe’s smile widened.
I opened my satchel and took out my notebook. “Common room. One hearth, five chairs, five cups, no visible structural damage.”
“You’re ignoring me.”
“I’m working.”
“Orange appears to mean irritated.”
“We don’t know that.”
“It suits you.”
The light deepened.
“Rafe,” Leander said.
The gold and orange disappeared. The room turned a cold, clean white.
Rafe looked from Leander to the walls. “And that appears to mean someone has ruined the fun.”
“It means we have been sealed inside an unknown magical structure while academy officials are unable to reach us.”
“They’ll reach us.”
“You cannot know that.”
“The wing waited a few hundred years for us. I doubt it plans to kill us before dinner.”
Leander’s jaw tightened.
I wrote another line in the notebook.
Wall runes appear responsive to conversation or emotional state. Exact function unknown.
Sebastian read the sentence over my shoulder.
I closed the notebook.
“You write quickly,” he said.
“You stand too close.”
He stepped back without argument.
That surprised me more than Rafe’s teasing.
“We should divide the rooms,” Torren said. “No one goes through a sealed door alone. If something reacts, call the others before proceeding.”
Leander looked relieved to hear a sensible suggestion. “Agreed.”
We began with the common room.
The hearth held no wood, but a low flame appeared when Torren approached. It burned red around the edges and gold at the center. He held one hand over it, then drew back.
“No smoke,” he said. “No heat beyond the stone.”
Rafe moved closer. A current of air lifted the flame and divided it into five narrow points.
Sebastian’s shadow passed across the floor and touched the hearth. Violet appeared within one of the flames.
Leander did not test his power. He watched the fire return to normal as soon as the others stepped away.
I approached last.
The flames became clear.
Not extinguished.
Clear.
The air above the hearth distorted with heat, but I could see through the fire itself.
Torren came to stand beside me. “Have you ever done that before?”
“I’ve never done anything before.”
He looked down at me.
I realized how the answer sounded. “With magic.”
Rafe made a quiet sound behind us.
I turned. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
The walls glowed orange again.
Torren’s mouth moved at one corner. Not quite another laugh, but close.
We found a dining room beyond the common area, with a round table and five carved chairs. The adjoining kitchen contained empty cabinets, a stone oven, and a cold-storage chest that chilled when Leander opened it. Five place settings waited on the shelves.
The bathing room was larger than the kitchen and divided into five recessed alcoves. Each contained a deep stone tub, a washstand, and a curtain that could be drawn across the opening.
Rafe tugged on one curtain. “At least the architects believed in some privacy.”
“Some?” I asked.
“The beds are in the same room.”
“You may sleep in the corridor.”
The wall runes turned gold.
I pretended not to notice.
Five wardrobes occupied a dressing room between the bathing chamber and the beds. Four were made from woods matching the men’s elemental colors. The fifth had clear crystal panels resembling the frame of my bed.
Torren opened the red wardrobe.
It contained a full set of clothing in his size: training trousers, shirts, formal uniforms, boots, and a heavy dark coat. He removed one shirt and held it across his chest.
“This wasn’t placed here today.”
“No one knew this room existed today,” Sebastian said.
“Then how does it fit him?” I asked.
Torren checked the stitching inside the collar. “There’s no marked size.”
Rafe opened his wardrobe and found silver-gray clothing cut to his measurements. Sebastian’s held black and deep violet. Leander’s contained dark blue, white, and silver.
I approached the crystal wardrobe.
My reflection appeared faintly in its transparent doors.
My brown hair had loosened around my face during the ceremony, and a crease crossed one side of my gray robe where Camilla had held me.
Without the keeper’s badge, I might have looked like someone who had wandered into the wrong part of the academy.
I opened the wardrobe.
The first garment was a dark gray training uniform with clear thread embroidered along the collar and cuffs. Behind it hung white shirts, black trousers, a formal coat, and several soft robes. None carried an elemental color.
A pair of boots rested on the lowest shelf.
I picked one up and checked the sole. “These cannot be mine.”
“Try it,” Rafe said.
“I’m not removing my shoe in front of four strangers.”
“We share a sleeping chamber.”
“That doesn’t make you less strange.”
He leaned against his silver wardrobe. “We can introduce ourselves again if it helps.”
“I know who you are.”
“That sounded almost threatening.”
“It was meant to be efficient.”
The walls warmed to gold again.
I returned the boot to the shelf.
Sebastian examined the embroidery on one sleeve without touching it. “These are the same runes that appeared around the fifth beam.”
“They look similar.”
“They’re identical.”
“How can you tell?”
“I remember patterns.”
“So do I.”
His attention moved from the sleeve to me. Something sharpened in his expression, not challenge exactly, but recognition.
“Then you know I’m right.”
I did.
“I need a rubbing from the Hall before I confirm it.”
Rafe looked between us. “This is going to become unbearable, isn’t it?”
“It already has,” Leander said.
A second corridor extended behind the dressing room.
We found a study at its end.
Five desks faced a wall of empty shelves. Locked cabinets occupied the lower level, their doors carved with the same interlocking runes that had sealed the Fifth Wing. A narrow display table stood in the center of the room.
Five curved supports rose from its surface.
Four were empty.
Sebastian went directly to the cabinets. Leander examined the desks. Torren checked the second doorway, which opened onto a broad training terrace.
I remained beside the display table.
The supports were designed for torcs. Their shape matched the four ceremonial stands I had prepared in the Hall, although these were smaller and cut from one piece of clear stone.
My gaze passed over the empty spaces.
Then returned to the fifth.
The air above it looked uneven.
I moved to the other side of the table. The distortion remained, bending the edge of the nearest desk.
“There’s something here.”
All four men turned.