By the end of the day, half the lower floor of Willowgrove had been stripped to its weary bones. The scent of sawdust, old rot, and mana-laced chalk hung thick in the air, mingling with the low thrum of latent energy humming through the walls.

  Galen Thorne stood in the parlor with a mana-slate in one hand and a piece of chalk in the other, crouched over a gaping section of exposed floor beams. The boards were gone—ripped out clean—revealing the dark underbelly of the house. In their place, he scrawled a precise glyph that glowed faint blue and shimmered into solidity.

  “That’s the last of them,” he said, straightening with a groan. “Temporary walking glyphs. You can pass over them, just don’t scuff the edges.”

  Ilyari eyed the glowing runes, the floor now a patchwork of floating steps and solid boards. “And if we do?”

  “You fall,” he said bluntly. “So... don’t.”

  Tazien tested one with a careful step. It held firm, if slightly springy. “Alright. Glyph-floor Games. Got it.”

  As the crew packed up for the night, Lord Thorne gave a final round of orders and gestures, marking unstable areas with chalked warnings and old cloth tied to nails. “We’ll be back before sunrise. Don’t go wandering barefoot, and if the house hums—again—get outside.”

  When the door shut behind the last craftsman, silence returned—eerie and soft. The house exhaled.

  Ilyari and Tazien exchanged a look, then headed for the kitchen.

  Dinner was simple: pan-seared root hash, herb-laced flatbread, and a small kettle of lemon balm tea from the garden. The smell was clean and comforting. As it cooked, Ilyari spread out the dining etiquette scroll across the table, while Tazien opened a thick tome titled Historical Patterns of Noble Lineages and Court Mannerisms.

  “I bet Veska’s waiting for me to choose the fish knife on accident again,” Ilyari muttered, arranging the cutlery set from memory.

  “She’ll probably pop out of a cupboard mid-meal if you use the dessert fork for salad,” Tazien said around a bite of bread.

  “I’m not giving her the satisfaction.” Ilyari tapped the scroll. “Tonight we learn.”

  They quizzed each other between bites, mimicking the correct gestures, sipping with poised fingers, and testing each utensil arrangement from soup to sorbet. Every time Ilyari faltered, she corrected herself, jaw tight with determination.

  “We’re going to get it right,” she said.

  “We?” Tazien teased.

  “You’re my partner in crime. If I mess up, I’m dragging you down with me.”

  He saluted her with his fork. “Better than going alone.”

  After dinner, they studied their coursebooks—mana theory, noble law, written spell construction, historical conflicts, and diplomacy procedures. The material was dense, filled with terms only half-familiar. But they pushed through. Because failure wasn’t an option. Not anymore.

  Eventually, the candles burned low.

  Ilyari yawned, rising to hang the last of the drying herbs before bedtime. Tazien was already dozing on the bench, scroll across his lap and WynData’s rune panel blinking softly beside him.

  She nudged him awake and together they climbed the stairs—stepping carefully around the glowing glyphs and praying the floor would still be beneath them come morning.

  But sleep brought no peace.

  In the dark hush of her room, as the house creaked around her and the stars blinked beyond her window, Ilyari dreamed.

  The garden again.

  Only this time, it wasn’t overgrown.

  It was lit.

  Soft blue mana lights lined the paths. The herbs were pruned, the apothecary windows glowed from within, and the fountain no longer oozed—but shimmered, clean and flowing.

  And from somewhere just beyond the path—a voice.

  A man’s voice.

  Calling her name.

  “Ilyari…”

  She turned, but the path twisted. The shadows deepened. And somewhere behind her, the box—the box pulsed.

  Not just light this time. But heat. Sound. Breath. “Ilyari…”

  She opened her mouth to answer— And woke up seemingly in the garden.

  The garden was silent. The box and the room, gone from sight. She turned to see the house to her left.

  But her heart was pounding.

  She heard the hum of the house and looked with her sight. The mana around the house looked red, angry, she looked at her surroundings and the purple and green Royal code and it shifted violently around her. A shiver ran up her spine.

  Soft at first, barely audible beneath the rustle of leaves and the low hum of unseen wings.

  “Ilyari…”

  She stood beneath the archway of the east garden, barefoot, though the ground didn’t cut her skin. The sky above was twilight—neither day nor night—bruised with streaks of lavender and gray. The air was heavy, wet with the scent of overripe herbs and damp stone.

  “Ilyari…”

  The voice called again—male, gentle, but unrecognizable.

  She took a step forward. The path underfoot was the same as in waking: cracked stone, roots curling through the seams. But the garden itself pulsed with strange energy. The leaves were too bright, too still. The vines swayed though there was no wind.

  “Who are you?” she called softly.

  No answer. Only a beckoning presence, drawing her toward the center.

  The path led her to the fountain.

  It stood still as ever, the carved stone basin rimmed with ancient vine etchings and spiral motifs. But the water wasn’t water—not in the dream either. Thick black sludge oozed slowly from the spout, trailing down like tar.

  From the shadows beside the fountain, a figure stepped forward.

  Or rather—unfolded.

  He wasn’t made of flesh, but of shifting shadow, like ink spilled into smoke. Vague in outline, tall and thin, cloaked in darkness that never quite held still.

  “You came,” he said. His voice was low, resonant. It seemed to echo both inside and outside her head.

  Ilyari’s breath caught. “What is this place?”

  “You know what it is,” the shadow said, stepping closer. “You just don’t know what it was.”

  He gestured to the fountain with a long, smoke-fingered hand. “This was a font of healing. Once. Before it was corrupted. Before they sabotaged the heartwood beneath.”

  “Heartwood?” she echoed, eyes fixed on the sludge that bubbled up in slow pulses. “You mean the roots under Willowgrove?”

  The figure tilted his head. “No. Deeper. Older. Before the name Willowgrove was ever written.”

  Her fingers clenched. “Can it be saved?”

  The shadow didn’t answer.

  “Can it be purified?” she pressed, stepping toward him.

  But he had already begun to fade. The edges of his shape unraveled like fog in morning sun, wisping away into the ether.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Wait!” she shouted. “Please—wait!”

  Nothing. The wind rose sharply. And with it, the soft sound of chittering. She turned.

  Behind her, in the herb beds where lemon balm and bee balm once grew, the ground squirmed.

  Dozens—no, hundreds—of mice emerged from the shadows. But these were wrong. Twisted. Their eyes glowed the same sickly color as the fountain mold. Their fur was patchy, their teeth far too long. Some limped on broken limbs that should not have borne weight.

  And they were hissing. Ilyari took a step back. Then another. The horde surged. She ran.

  Through the garden paths, past overturned pots and dying vines. The trees overhead groaned like old bones. The stones cracked beneath her bare feet.

  The mice were gaining. She dove through a tangled archway—but her foot caught. She tripped—fell hard. Her hands scraped the path, and the breath was knocked from her chest. Then she heard them. Snarling. Clawing. Coming closer. She turned, too late. The first of the mice leapt onto her shoulder, its mouth opening with a squeal that shook her bones. Then—A scream. But it wasn’t hers. She jolted upright.

  Her room was dark, the moonlight slanting pale and cold through the cracked windowpane. Her nightgown clung to her skin, damp with sweat. Her breath came in sharp gasps.

  For a long moment, she thought it was just a dream.

  Until she saw him.

  In the corner of her room, where shadow met the stone wall, the figure stood.

  Motionless.

  Still.

  Watching.

  He didn’t speak.

  But she could have sworn—sworn—he smiled.

  She turned her head fully to face him.

  And he was gone.

  The silence that followed was deafening.

  She curled under her covers, breath shallow, heart racing.

  She didn’t sleep again, not really.

  Only drifted—adrift and unsettled—until morning crept in like a whisper from the east.

  Ilyari woke with a sharp gasp, sweat clinging to her skin and the sheets tangled around her legs like vines. The early morning light filtered in through the cracked shutters, pale and cold.

  Her right hand throbbed.

  She sat up slowly, blinking through the remnants of sleep and dream-fog. When she turned her palm over, she saw it—raw and scraped, like she’d fallen on rough stone. A sharp sting pulsed at the touch.

  But… she hadn’t fallen yesterday - Not while awake.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, trying to ground herself in the here and now. Her eyes darted to the far corner of her room—empty. No shadow man. No voice. Just the quiet hum of mana threads somewhere under the floor, and the whisper of morning wind in the trees.

  The smell of toasted bread and something savory drifted faintly from the kitchen.

  When she entered, Tazien was halfway through a plate of scrambled eggs and root hash, his hair a wild cloud of sleep-flattened white and his collar only half buttoned.

  He looked up. And frowned.

  “You look awful.”

  “Morning to you, too,” she muttered, heading for the water basin, dipping her hand in the water watching the scrapes heal and fade.

  “No seriously,” he said around a bite. “You look like you wrestled Laileeih and lost. What happened?”

  “Bad dream,” she said. “Really bad.”

  Before she could explain more, the door creaked and Galen Thorne’s voice called from the front.

  “Coming in! We've got sealant, board, and the blessing of the sun!”

  Tazien groaned and stood, licking his thumb and wiping something off the corner of his mouth. “Time to go fight the garden again.”

  ???

  Later that morning, after breakfast and another briefing from Galen, Ilyari found herself walking the path to the garden alone. She didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the fountain.

  She stood at the base of the marble steps. Her heart dropped.

  In the dirt—just where she remembered falling in the dream—were marks. Dozens of them. Scuffed grooves and tiny, erratic scratches, as if claws had torn at the ground during a frenzy.

  “Il.” Tazien’s voice called from behind her. “You need to see this.”

  He pointed toward the basin of the fountain.

  The mold had worsened. What had once been a sluggish trickle had become a sickly pool at the base, viscous and glistening black. It swirled faintly in the water like ink dropped into milk.

  “It’s growing,” he said grimly. “Faster than yesterday.”

  Ilyari crouched beside the basin, her scraped hand throbbing again. “It’s not going to stop, is it?”

  “Not unless we fix it from the source.”

  Tazien stepped back and surveyed the space. “We need to get under it. Soil, pipes—whatever is feeding this thing. It’s not natural.”

  She nodded. “Let’s clean it off. See if we can get closer.”

  Together, they started scraping and scrubbing the mold from the basin edge. It slopped into the earth, hissing faintly as it soaked into the gravel.

  They worked carefully at first, until Ilyari glanced toward the manor.

  “We’re far enough from the main walls,” she said, “Try it.”

  Tazien hesitated. “Really?”

  “You said yesterday the code wouldn’t cause a big flare this far out.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Alright. Just a little tweak.”

  He extended a finger and whispered a code glyph beneath his breath—sharp and mechanical, a sliver of code written not in spellwork but in the subtle syntax of their lineage.

  The plants surrounding the fountain suddenly shriveled.

  The moss curled into itself. Vines blackened.

  And the fountain... sputtered.

  With a wet, angry sound, a huge glob of mold shot from the spout and slapped against the fountain lip.

  Ilyari jumped back. “Was that supposed to happen?!”

  Tazien looked equal parts mortified and impressed. “That was... unexpected.”

  She gave him a flat look. “Tazien.”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Setback. Just a little one.”

  “Just a—!” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You scared the herbs.”

  They crouched again, both silent now, studying the ground around the base of the fountain. The dirt here was darker—rich, almost black—and it didn’t match the rest of the gravel walkway. Ilyari brushed aside a clump of dead moss.

  “It’s different here,” she whispered.

  “Yeah. I see it too.”

  He grabbed a nearby shovel and began to dig. The earth peeled back in thick clumps, sticky with the same oily residue as the mold. They dug cautiously—two feet, three feet down—until Tazien’s shovel struck something hard.

  He knelt and cleared the soil.

  A pipe. Old. Etched.

  Along its metal curve were symbols—glyphs—but not just any glyphs.

  They glowed faintly with old, twisted Royal Code.

  Tazien’s face paled.

  “Il… this is Royal. Mechanical routing script. But it’s broken. Like someone changed it. Look here—” he pointed, fingers shaking slightly, “—that’s supposed to be a purity clause.”

  Ilyari leaned in. “That’s not purity.”

  “No,” he said grimly. “That’s... ‘putrid-fication.’”

  “That’s not a word,” she whispered, grimacing at the technical code. She was not the expert at this like her brother was, she hated to admit that, even to herself.

  “It is now.” He exhaled hard. “This whole system was built to purify. And someone corrupted it. Someone with access to our family’s syntax.”

  Her stomach churned as she looked down the length of the pipe, following the code as it curved further into the earth—at least thirty feet visible before it disappeared beneath another knot of roots.

  “It would take you days to fix this,” she said quietly.

  “Days,” he confirmed. “And only if it doesn’t fight back.”

  They looked at each other.

  Then down at the pipe.

  The fountain gurgled once more, spewing another slow trail of black.

  Tazien picked up the shovel again. “Guess we better start digging.”

  “You don’t have days.”

  The voice cut through the garden like a blade dipped in ice.

  Ilyari and Tazien whipped around.

  At the edge of the gravel path stood Master Veska and Master Lorn—immaculate as ever, cloaks untouched by the mud, arms crossed with twin expressions of scrutiny. Behind them, a sleek black Academy carriage waited near the edge of the estate path, its crest gleaming faintly in the morning light.

  Veska’s gaze swept over the scene: the half-dug trench, the glistening sludge at the fountain’s base, the tools scattered in the grass, and the sweat and grime streaking the Aierenbane siblings' clothes.

  “Well,” she said, voice clipped. “Is this what you do in your free time, Miss Aierenbane? Play house repair with gutter mold?”

  Lorn gave a short grunt. “We expected to find you reviewing texts. Not digging up the foundations of a condemned estate.”

  Ilyari straightened, wiping her hands on her apron. “We’re doing both, Master Veska. But if we don’t repair the house—or reclaim the land—it will collapse. And we’ll starve.”

  “Then explain,” Veska said sharply, her eyes narrowing. “Explain how you hired a full crew of craftsmen. Who’s funding this restoration? Did you take a loan from a back-alley creditor? A merchant family? If this ties the Academy into debt through its wards—”

  “No,” Ilyari interrupted, respectfully but firmly. “There’s no loan. I negotiated a commission contract with a noblewoman. In exchange for tailoring nine custom spring dresses, her husband is providing structural assessment and repair. He’s a craftsman—Master Galen Thorne.”

  From behind them, footsteps approached. Lord Thorne himself emerged from the side path, sleeves rolled, a sealant scroll tucked under one arm and chalk dust still on his palms.

  “Confirmed,” he said without ceremony. “Everything was witnessed and signed. The contract’s legal. I’m overseeing all repairs personally, and I’ll be supervising the workers while they’re gone. The house won’t be worse when they return. In fact, it might be standing straighter.”

  Veska’s lips pressed into a hard line, but she said nothing. Lorn gave a grunt, half-impressed, half-annoyed.

  “Still,” Veska said coolly, “you’re due at the Academy. Lessons don’t pause for housework.”

  “We’ll change,” Ilyari said calmly. “Give us a few minutes.”

  She offered a respectful nod to Veska, and another to Lorn, before turning on her heel. Tazien followed, dusting off his pants and muttering under his breath, “Next time, remind me to chide Laileeih for not warning me that you came.”

  Back near the carriage, Veska and Lorn waited in rigid silence.

  Galen lingered behind them for a moment, gaze drifting toward the fountain where the first faint trickle of clear water had begun to push through the sludge.

  “Funny thing about rot,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Sometimes it just takes the right hands to heal it or replace the damaged parts.”

  He tapped the chalk pouch on his belt gazing at the fountain a moment more and then back at the carriage and turned back toward the house.

  And behind him, the fountain gave another soft sputter—less sludge, more shimmer.

  What do you think the shadow in Ilyari’s dream really is?

  And that mold crystal Laileeih dropped? Friend? Foe? Something else entirely?

  strange way this estate seems to be watching them back.