Chapter 26
Sebastian
The headmaster believed us.
It was not enough.
Enough to prove sabotage. Not enough to identify the saboteur.
He examined the unused outward return channel, compared it with the blackened fragment recovered from the demonstration platform, and acknowledged that the reversal could not have occurred by accident. He ordered the Hall of Prism closed and suspended Malcolm’s authority over further testing.
Then he asked us to surrender the evidence.
“We will provide the copies,” I said.
Malcolm stood at the opposite end of the headmaster’s office. He had not spoken since our arrival, but his attention remained fixed on the warded case beneath my hand.
“The originals belong to the academy,” he said.
“They belong to an inquiry,” Leander replied. “Until one is formally convened, the heirs retain possession.”
Malcolm’s expression did not change. “You recovered academy property through theft.”
Rafe crossed his arms. “You’re welcome.”
The headmaster raised a hand before Malcolm could respond.
He was an older man with silver at his temples and the heavy stillness of someone accustomed to ending arguments without raising his voice. “The original pieces will remain in the Fifth Wing under seal. The copies will be examined by three independent rune masters.”
“Independent rune masters selected by whom?” Torren asked.
“By the crown council.”
Leander’s jaw tightened.
His family held two positions on that council.
Talia stood between Torren and me, wearing the transparent torc the Fifth Wing had given her. It was nearly invisible against her throat, but the center stone caught the light whenever she moved.
“And what happens to Malcolm?” she asked.
The Keeper turned toward her.
I stepped closer before I considered the movement. Torren did the same on her other side.
The headmaster noticed both.
“Keeper Malcolm remains suspended from the Trials until the inquiry is complete,” he said. “He will retain his academy duties outside the Trial chambers.”
“That means he keeps access to the archives,” I said.
“The Trial archives require Keeper authority.”
“Exactly.”
Malcolm’s eyes met mine.
The darkness beneath my skin stirred. My dragon had never trusted him. Until recently, I had dismissed that response as rivalry between two forms of shadow power. Now I wondered whether my dragon had recognized something my mind had not.
“You have made a serious accusation, Heir Sebastian,” Malcolm said.
“I described a weakness in the headmaster’s order.”
“You implied I would use my authority to interfere with an inquiry.”
“If you heard your name in my statement, that was your choice.”
Rafe coughed into his fist to hide a laugh.
The headmaster’s patience thinned. “Keeper Malcolm will surrender his Trial keys and authority seal until the council rules. Is that sufficient?”
“No,” Torren said.
Talia touched his forearm. It was a small gesture, but he looked down at her immediately.
“It’s enough for now,” she told him.
Malcolm watched her hand on Torren’s arm.
For the first time, his control slipped. Disgust tightened his mouth before his features smoothed again.
The reaction lasted less than a second.
I saw it.
By the time we returned to the Fifth Wing, I could not stop thinking about it.
Malcolm had dedicated his life to preserving the Trials. If he believed the five of us represented corruption rather than restoration, sabotaging the demonstration would not be an act of ambition. It would be an act of faith.
Faith made dangerous enemies. Evidence rarely changed it.
Surrendering his keys might close doors to Malcolm. It would not alter whatever conviction had made Talia’s existence offend him.
The others gathered in the common room to discuss the inquiry. I went directly to the study.
The room still showed traces of pale blue from whatever had occurred between Talia and Leander that morning. A few red runes remained near the doorway from the previous night. Normally, I found the wing’s lack of discretion irritating.
Today, the mixed colors caught my attention.
Blue and red appeared in separate runes, but where their light overlapped, violet formed across the stone.
Not a new source of power. A different result created when two sources crossed.
Refraction.
Talia’s power did more than redirect force. It exposed relationships that separate elements could not reveal—and perhaps truths that had been hidden from any single kind of magic.
I unlocked the bottom drawer of my desk and removed the rubbing I had taken from the restricted archive.
FOUR ENTER. ONE EMERGES.
The visible inscription had been carved above the earliest recorded entrance to the Trials. The words appeared in every crown-law text, every academy history, and every account of a Choosing for the last eight hundred years.
The first word had always bothered me.
Not its meaning. Its construction.
The remaining words were carved in one continuous hand. The letters slanted slightly to the right, and each groove ended in a triangular point. FOUR appeared straighter. Cleaner. Its grooves ended bluntly.
Someone had not altered individual letters.
Someone had placed one word over another.
I set the rubbing beneath the study light and positioned a violet crystal at its edge. Shadow alone had revealed the seal around the first word, but every attempt to penetrate it had failed.
Perhaps shadow was never intended to break it.
I needed a second source crossing mine.
Talia entered without knocking.
She stopped when she saw the rubbing. “You disappeared.”
“I had an idea.”
“Is it an idea that requires food?”
“No.”
“Sleep?”
“No.”
“Then it’s the kind of idea that worries everyone.”
She crossed the study and stood beside me. Her hair was pinned back from her face now, and she had changed into her academy coat. The clear scale on her wrist was hidden beneath one cuff.
I pointed to the first word. “What do you see?”
“Four.”
“Look at the cuts.”
She bent over the rubbing. Her shoulder touched mine.
I forced my attention to remain on the page.
“The letters don’t match,” she said after a moment.
“No.”
“Could it have been repaired?”
“The archive records claim it was. The eastern entrance collapsed during the War of Ash, and the inscription was supposedly recut afterward.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“The seal beneath the word predates the repair.”
She looked at me. “You found a seal?”
“I can feel it with shadow, but I can’t see what it conceals.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because until now, I had no method of opening it.”
“And now?”
I pointed to the blue and red light overlapping on the wall.
Her expression sharpened with understanding. “You think two powers need to cross.”
“I think your power may allow mine to reach what lies beneath.”
Talia’s gaze returned to the rubbing. “This isn’t the original stone.”
“No, but the archivist who made it used transfer paper treated with powdered crystal. It was designed to preserve magical residue.”
“Can it preserve a hidden inscription?”
“We’re going to find out.”
Torren appeared in the doorway. “Find out what?”
Rafe and Leander stood behind him.
Talia sighed. “Do all of you follow me now?”
“Yes,” Torren said.
“Only when Sebastian disappears first,” Rafe added.
Leander entered and closed the door. “Explain.”
I showed them the mismatched carving and the sealed residue beneath it. Leander examined the letters through a magnifying lens while Rafe held the rubbing toward the light.
“If someone changed it,” Rafe said, “they did a poor job.”
“They did an excellent job,” I replied. “Thousands of scholars accepted the official explanation.”
Talia took her place beside me again. “What do you need me to do?”
“Call your power, but do not direct it into the page. Hold it above my hand.”
Torren moved closer. “Is that safe?”
“No.”
Talia gave me a flat look.
“It is unlikely to harm her,” I clarified.
“That wasn’t better,” Torren said.
“The rubbing may burn. The seal could discharge. The study wards should contain either reaction.”
“Should?”
“Nothing involving Talia’s power has behaved according to established rules.”
“I’m standing here,” she reminded us.
Torren folded his arms. “I’m aware.”
Talia removed the glove from her right hand and pushed back her cuff. The transparent scale shone faintly.
“Show me where.”
I placed two fingers over the word FOUR and released a narrow thread of shadow. Darkness entered the lines on the page, tracing the altered letters.
Talia held her palm above mine.
Clear light gathered beneath her skin.
“Not into the shadow,” I warned. “Across it.”
“How?”
“Think of what you did in the demonstration hall. You didn’t stop the elemental streams. You changed the direction they traveled.”
“That happened by instinct.”
“Use mine.”
Her eyes lifted to my face.
I should have found a more precise way to express it. Instead, I let the shadow rise from the page and curl between our hands.
“Feel where it wants to go,” I said.
Talia closed her eyes.
The clear light touched my shadow.
Cold moved through my arm, followed by a sharp awareness that did not belong to me. Talia’s concentration pressed against my senses. I felt her uncertainty, her determination, and beneath both, the enormous presence that had awakened inside her.
Her dragon.
She felt me too.
The contact did not carry words, yet it felt more intimate than speech. She found the parts of me I kept behind observation and precision—and she did not pull away.
Her eyes opened.
For one suspended moment, neither of us breathed.
Then the light bent.
It passed through my shadow and divided into four narrow beams. Violet spread over the rubbing as the powers crossed.
The word FOUR lifted from the page.
It did not disappear. The letters peeled upward as a single layer of black magic, hovering above the transfer paper like smoke trapped beneath glass.
A second word emerged below it.
The page shook under my hand.
Rafe lowered the crystal lamp until its light fell directly across the inscription.
Talia read it first.
“Five.”
No one spoke.
The restored inscription lay before us in the same ancient hand as the remaining words.