The storm came without warning. Thunder cracked like stone splitting, and Amber jolted awake. Rain hammered the windows, rattling their frames. The fire in her hearth had long since died, leaving only the faint smell of ash and the damp bite of autumn crawling through the stone walls.
But it wasn't the storm that unsettled her.
It was the silence between its bursts.
The quiet pressed too heavily against her ears, as though the Academy itself were holding its breath.
Amber swung her legs from the bed and set her bare feet onto the cold floor. She lit the stub of a candle on her desk. Its thin flame trembled, painting the room in uneasy gold. The wardrobe loomed taller than it should have. The mirror's glass held not her reflection, but something darker, a shadow that seemed to hesitate a heartbeat too long before following her movements.
The thought of staying in the chamber gnawed at her. She opened the door and slipped into the corridor.
The great hallways of Grimrose stretched long and dark. Sconces sputtered weakly against the storm's fury outside. Rain streaked down the tall windows in jagged patterns, making it seem as though the glass wept. Portraits lined the walls, their eyes following her small flame. Some smiled faintly, others glared, and one—a woman in a silver gown—seemed almost to lean closer as Amber passed.
She reached the stairwell and hesitated. Go back to bed? Or go down, where the storm's voice echoed through the stones like a heartbeat?
Her feet chose for her.
The library doors opened with a groan of wood and iron.
Inside, the air smelled of vellum and dust, with the faint wetness of rain creeping through cracked panes. Towers of books loomed like watchmen, their shadows long and hungry. The silence here was thicker, layered, as though every book strained to whisper at once but dared not.
Amber moved between the shelves. Her candlelight slid across gilded spines and leather bindings. She passed an aisle where books were chained shut with iron clasps. Another shelf bore cracked volumes with names in languages she did not recognize. At one end of the room, a table had been left in disarray: a quill broken, ink spilled across the wood in a dark blot that had dried like blood.
She touched the edge of the table. Her finger came away black.
A lightning flash tore across the windows, filling the library with silver light. For a split second, she swore she saw a figure in the far row—thin, hunched, unmoving. But when the light vanished, nothing remained.
Amber's breath hitched. Her flame bent low, guttering.
And then—
A sound.
The faint scrape of a chair leg.
She froze.
Beyond the last row of shelves, a boy sat at a long oak table. A candle burned steady at his side, illuminating a page of sprawling ink. He bent over it, posture sharp, hand moving with ruthless precision.
He did not look up at first.
"You tread too softly," he said, his voice low and measured, each syllable deliberate. "But I heard you the moment you entered."
Amber gripped her candle tighter.
At last, he lifted his head. His features were sharp, unmistakably cut—straight nose, high cheekbones, the cool gravity of someone who observed more than he revealed. His steel-gray eyes caught hers, reflecting the flame like a blade's edge.
"You're Ashford," he said, not asking but stating. "The girl in the east wing."
Amber nodded once.
He gestured faintly to the chair opposite him. "Sit. The storm won't pass soon."
Her hesitation lasted only a moment. She lowered herself into the seat, her candle set beside his. Their flames mingled, doubling the shadows across the table.
That was when she saw what he guarded.
A map.
Not of lands.
Of the Academy.
Its corridors were inked in black, winding like veins. Notes scrawled in the margins: sealed, restricted, forbidden. Some parts of the parchment had been rubbed raw, as though he had tried to erase what should not exist.
Amber's breath caught.
The boy's gaze flicked to her, sharp and unreadable. "Few know how deep these halls go," he said, tapping the map. "Fewer wonder why certain doors never open."
She said nothing. Her silence was both instinct and shield.
He studied her for a long moment. Then his lips curved, almost approving. "You don't speak. Good. Grimrose thrives on silence. Loose tongues don't last here."
Another thunderclap rattled the glass. The candlelight bent low, nearly dying.
He rolled up the parchment with deliberate care, binding it with a strip of leather. When he stood, his movements were crisp, unhurried, like a man who never rushed yet was never late.
"My name is Elias Moreau." The syllables fell with precision. "Remember it. If you're clever, you'll find it useful to know who listens in the dark."
And then he turned, his candle trailing a thin wake of light as he disappeared into the rows.
His voice lingered, faint but cutting:
"Stay too long in the library after midnight, and the Academy itself may begin to whisper back."
Amber sat frozen.
The silence thickened.
A book tumbled from a shelf behind her, its spine splitting as it struck the ground. She spun, but no one stood there. Only the shelves, vast and still.
Her heart thundered. She bent to pick up the book. The cover was warped with water damage, the title half-erased. But when she opened it, a slip of paper fell out—an inked scrap torn from a larger sheet.
A fragment of the same map Elias had carried.
Amber's hands shook. She tucked the fragment into her pocket just as another sound stirred the air.
Footsteps.
She looked up. At the far end of the aisle, a tall figure stood half-shadowed, watching her. His face was hidden, but she recognized the stillness of his posture—Jonas Whitlock.
Their eyes met for the span of a heartbeat. Then lightning flashed, and when it faded, the space was empty.
Amber's flame trembled low, her breath ragged.
The storm raged outside, clawing at the windows. Inside, something deeper had already broken open. She had seen Elias's map. She had found the fragment. And someone else had seen her.
Her silence had always been her refuge.
But in Grimrose, it had already made her visible.