“WHOA—hey!” Tavi dodged it just in time. “What the hell, Ichabod!?”

  “It moved! It talked! It’s writing stuff I didn’t write!”

  Crowe slowly got off his bed, picked up the notebook like it might bite him, and opened it.

  More writing was appearing on the next page. Not all at once. Word by word.

  “There is a gate beneath the roots.

  Threads buried. Sealed. Forgotten.

  You woke it.”

  The three boys went dead silent.

  Kael paled. “...Can I burn it now?”

  Tavi leaned closer, eyes narrowed. “No. Now we definitely have to keep it.”

  Crowe didn’t speak. He was still staring at the final line that had appeared in small, neat script—written in a different ink, darker and thicker than the rest.

  You three were chosen.

  The air in the room seemed to go still. Even the enchanted lanterns flickered.

  Kael sat down hard on his bed. “I really miss when my worst problem was failing broom class.”

  Crowe, now grim-faced, carefully closed the notebook and set it back on the table—upside down, as if that would somehow help.

  Outside the window, the fog rose higher, whispering against the glass like something waking up.

  The three of them stared at the notebook for what felt like hours—until Kael suddenly stood up with a snap of his fingers and whispered, “We’re going.”

  Crowe blinked. “Going where?”

  “Wherever that creepy thing wants us to go,” Kael said, already digging through the old wooden chest at the foot of his bed. “I’ve got just the thing.”

  “You’re suggesting we break school rules. At night. To follow a haunted notebook,” Tavi deadpanned.

  “Correct,” Kael said, grinning like a fox. “And I’m bringing my best friend.”

  He yanked something out with a flourish: a silvery, shimmering cloak that glittered faintly under the lantern light. It looked like water caught in moonlight—ethereal and almost unreal.

  Tavi’s jaw dropped. “That’s—wait. Wait. Is that an invisibility cloak?!”

  Kael winked. “Stole it last year from a traveling headmaster who left it on a chair. His fault, really.”

  Crowe looked vaguely impressed. “And you’ve just... kept it?”

  “I’m a man of secrets and good taste,” Kael said with a dramatic bow, sweeping the cloak around his shoulders. The moment he did, he vanished—only his voice remained: “Ta-da!”

  A disembodied hand tugged at Crowe’s arm. “Come on, Mister Cautious.”

  “You’re insane,” Crowe muttered, but he and Tavi followed anyway.

  ???

  Outside the Dormitory – Midnight

  The halls of the Academy looked different at night.

  Not just dark—different. Stone walls pulsed faintly with magical wards, shadows stretched too long, and the ever-present fog clung to the arches like ivy. Lanterns were unlit. Statues seemed to watch them.

  Kael, now visible again as he tucked the cloak under one arm, led them down a staircase none of them had used before—spiraling, narrow, and covered in ivy despite being indoors.

  “Where are we going?” Crowe whispered.

  Kael held up the notebook, which glowed faintly. The ink was writing again:

  "Beneath the West Courtyard.

  Through the mouth of the lion.

  Where no light sings."

  “The courtyard?” Tavi hissed. “That’s beyond the patrols!”

  “Then we better not get caught,” Kael said, grinning.

  ???

  The West Courtyard – 12:37 AM

  The lion was part of an old fountain. Rusted and dry, its mouth agape in a roar, moss-covered and forgotten. Students passed it every day without notice.

  But now, under moonlight, the lion’s eyes shimmered faintly. As Kael approached, the notebook hummed in his hand—then pulsed with light as the lion’s mouth opened wider.

  Stone grated.

  A hidden staircase descended beneath the fountain, swallowed by shadow.

  “...Okay, this is creepy even for me,” Kael admitted.

  Tavi stepped beside him, holding up a soft glowstone. “Let’s see what your cursed diary wants.”

  They descended, one by one.

  Beneath the Academy, the air was different—older. Cold. The walls were carved with strange thread-like runes, and somewhere deeper in the dark, something shifted.

  Beneath the Academy – 12:47 AM

  The staircase seemed to wind forever. Dust coated every surface, and the stone air smelled of old parchment, copper, and dried flowers. Tavi kept close behind Kael, who led with the glowing notebook pressed against his palm. Crowe brought up the rear, tense and silent, scanning the shadows.

  Finally, they reached the bottom.

  A stone door stood before them—arched and carved with hundreds of tiny, threadlike lines that shimmered faintly as they approached. In the center: a circle with a broken needle carved into it, like a sigil.

  Kael touched the center with the notebook.

  It clicked.

  Then slowly, the door slid open, releasing a low gust of magic-laced air that brushed past their ankles like a whisper.

  ???

  The Hidden Hall of Threads

  They stepped into a vast underground room. Dozens of old desks, shelves of leather-bound books, melted candles, and ruined tools sat forgotten under cobwebs. Strange weaving looms with crystal spindles lined the walls. Long threads of silver and ink floated midair, still humming faintly with magic.

  In the center of the room sat a large circular loom—half machine, half plant, as if it had grown from the ground itself. Hanging above it was a rusted plaque, partially faded:

  “THREADKEEPERS’ CIRCLE – Est. 473 A.T.”

  “What is this place?” Tavi whispered, stunned.

  Crowe walked slowly past the desks. “It’s a hidden classroom... no, a workshop. A secret one.”

  Kael’s eyes gleamed. “A hidden society of Threadbinders. Long gone.”

  He opened the notebook. More ink flowed across the page.

  “Welcome, Ichabod.

  The last weaver has returned."

  The three boys froze.

  Kael blinked. “What the—”

  The loom in the center pulsed. One by one, small threads of light slithered down from the ceiling and connected with the notebook in Kael’s hand. It glowed like a star—brilliant and strange.

  "You are bound by thread and craft.

  By story and stitch.

  The Threadkeepers chose you.

  And now, your story begins."

  The notebook snapped shut.

  And from somewhere deep in the shadows of the hall, something began to move.

  A whisper. A rustle. A mechanical creak.

  They weren’t alone.

  The Hall of Threads – Moments Later

  A low groan rolled through the stone chamber, like the sound of strained wood snapping under pressure.

  Then came the scrape. Harsh, metallic—like blunt scissors dragging across glass.

  Crowe stopped mid-step. “...Did anyone else hear that?”

  Tavi’s head whipped toward the corner. “I told you we shouldn’t have come down here!”

  Kael, still clutching the handmade notebook—the one he himself had bound with bark and pulp from that strange, silver-veined tree—didn’t look up. His voice was too calm to be comforting. “Oh, now you’re scared?”

  The shadows twitched.

  From the corner, something stirred.

  Eight segmented arms unfurled with unnatural grace—like the legs of a monstrous sewing machine insect. Each limb held something broken: rusted needles, warped embroidery hoops, snarled skeins of thread that moved like they were breathing. At the center, a white porcelain mask—blank except for a single glowing red stitch that pulsed like a heartbeat.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “MAKER,” it intoned.

  “INTRUDERS.”

  Kael’s jaw dropped. “Maker?!”

  The notebook flashed violently in his hand.

  Kael shrieked, dropped it like it had burned him, and sprinted. “NOPE. NOPE NOPE—WHY IS IT MOVING?!”

  The construct lunged. Threads hissed through the air like whips.

  Crowe swore and yanked Kael’s cloak mid-run, nearly tripping them both. “MOVE!”

  Tavi, thinking fast, yanked the stolen invisibility cloak from Kael’s bag and flung it over them just as a spool of razor-sharp thread carved into the stone floor behind them.

  They bolted—dodging dusty looms and shattered furniture. Kael’s panicked voice echoed as he shoved past a row of mannequins.

  “IT WAS JUST A TREE—I MADE A BOOK FROM A TREE—TREES DON’T CURSE YOU!”

  “You bled on the paper, Kael!” Tavi shouted. “That’s practically a summoning ritual!”

  “I DIDN’T MEAN TO!”

  The construct shrieked, too close. Crowe grabbed an abandoned chair and chucked it into its path, buying a precious second as the thing reeled.

  The boys slammed into the corridor door. Crowe threw his shoulder into it, and it groaned open just wide enough for them to squeeze through before slamming shut behind them with a heavy, echoing bang.

  Silence fell.

  The three collapsed in a heap, breathless and wide-eyed in the pitch-dark corridor. The notebook, now resting on the floor beside them, no longer glowed—but its pages fluttered softly, even without wind.

  Kael stared at it, then at his scratched arms, then at the cloak tangled around their feet.

  “…So, good news,” he said, voice hollow. “We’re not dead.”

  Tavi looked ready to strangle him. “You made that notebook. From a sentient tree.”

  Crowe groaned into his hands. “We are so expelled.”

  Kael picked up the book like it might bite him. “Can we all just agree that next time I say, ‘Hey, let’s harvest wood from a weird glowing tree,’ someone slaps me?”

  Tavi muttered, “Next time, I’m pushing you in first.”

  Aetherion Dormitory – Past Midnight

  The halls of the academy were thick with silence, save for the soft brush of fabric against stone as the invisibility cloak swayed with every hurried step.

  Tavi whispered, “Careful, the armor stand’s coming up on the left—don’t trip again, Kael.”

  “I didn’t trip,” Kael hissed back. “The floor attacked me.”

  Crowe, leading them under the too-tight cloak, muttered, “You two are breathing too loud. Do you want to die? Again?”

  They reached the portrait-covered archway that led to their dormitory. The enchanted painting of Lady Verya squinted as they passed.

  “Out rather late, aren’t you?” she whispered.

  Tavi froze. “She sees us.”

  Crowe held up a finger to his lips. “Shhh—she’s nosy, not a snitch.”

  Lady Verya winked and looked away.

  Once safely inside, they threw the cloak off, gasping. Kael collapsed face-first onto his bed, clutching the notebook like it was a cursed teddy bear.

  “That thing’s still warm,” he mumbled into his pillow. “That’s not normal for wood.”

  “Neither is glowing,” Tavi snapped, pacing. “Or whispering, or triggering ancient thread beasts!”

  Crowe said nothing. He sat cross-legged on the floor, already digging through a half-collapsed stack of old books under his bed. His brows were furrowed, lips pressed thin.

  Tavi blinked. “What are you doing?”

  “Research,” Crowe said, dragging out a worn leather-bound volume and flipping rapidly through the pages. “That construct wasn’t just some defense golem. It spoke. It recognized Kael. Called him a ‘maker.’”

  “Because I made the book!” Kael groaned. “I sanded it, I stitched it, I bled on it by accident—”

  “That tree was marked, Kael,” Crowe interrupted, not looking up. “That grove wasn’t supposed to exist anymore. There’s a reason none of us are allowed in the eastern woods.”

  Kael lifted his head, hair a disaster, eyes wide. “Wait—you knew the woods were cursed?!”

  “I had a hunch,” Crowe said, deadpan. “I didn’t think you’d go all arts and crafts with a demon tree.”

  Tavi leaned over Crowe’s shoulder as he turned pages. “What are you looking for, exactly?”

  Crowe paused on an illustration—an old sigil, stitched with ink and etched beside a paragraph in runic script. At its center was a symbol almost identical to the one that had briefly flickered across the notebook’s cover.

  “Here,” he said quietly. “Threadbound Constructs. Guardians of the Forgotten Weave.”

  Kael sat bolt upright. “That sounds horrible.”

  “It gets worse,” Crowe said. “They only wake when something from the Lost Threads gets disturbed. Something that was bound in silence. Or... unbound.”

  Kael’s face went pale.

  The notebook on his bed rustled.

  Tavi took a full step back. “Did it just... sigh?”

  Kael slowly pulled his blanket over the notebook like that would somehow help. “Okay. So. We’re going to pretend this never happened. I’ll turn it into kindling. No more cursed books. We all move on.”

  Crowe snapped the book shut. “It doesn’t work like that. You made it. It’s connected to you now.”

  Kael groaned. “Why can’t I ever just fail a math test like a normal student?!”

  ???

  Sunlight streamed through the high arched windows of the dining hall, bouncing off the polished crystal chandeliers and catching in the white trim of the Aetherion students’ uniforms. The world looked normal again—peaceful, even.

  But none of the boys were fooled.

  Kael sat at the long table, eyes hollow, chewing toast like it personally betrayed him. Tavi looked like he hadn’t slept, prodding his eggs with the concentration of a surgeon. Crowe was already skimming a book propped up behind his teacup, flipping pages like they’d done something wrong.

  “Okay,” Kael muttered finally, voice low. “No one’s mentioned the killer thread monster, the ghost book, or the cursed tree. Are we just... repressing that? Is that the plan?”

  “No,” Crowe said without looking up. “The plan is to figure out how deep this threadbinding curse goes before someone else gets dragged into it.”

  “Technically, you dragged me into it,” Kael grumbled.

  “You dragged yourself into it when you made a magical notebook from a forbidden tree,” Tavi pointed out, not looking up.

  Kael stabbed his toast. “Again, no one told me it was forbidden!”

  Crowe ignored him. “There’s a mention of a ‘Threadkeeper’ in the archives. We might be able to find out more in the third floor wing—old Aetherion records. But they’re locked.”

  Kael blinked. “And... how are we supposed to get in?”

  Crowe raised an eyebrow. “You stole an invisibility cloak, remember?”

  “I stole it once! That doesn’t make me the school’s designated thief!”

  Tavi leaned closer. “Kael... the book glowed. It wrote back. You think this is just going to stop?”

  Before Kael could answer, a paper crane—folded from thick, velvety cardstock—fluttered down onto their table from nowhere. It landed directly in front of Kael’s plate and slowly unfolded itself.

  “We saw you.”

  “Meet us at the Hollow Loom tonight.”

  “Bring the book.”

  All three stared at it.

  Kael groaned into his hands. “Of course. Now it’s a secret society.”

  Crowe quietly folded the message and tucked it away. “Looks like you're not the only one who made something from the tree.”

  Kael slumped. “I just wanted to pass my Threadbinding class. Not start a magical war.”

  Tavi stood. “Too late. You’re the chosen idiot now.”

  ???

  Outside the Hollow Loom

  The wind tugged at their cloaks as Kael, Tavi, and Crowe approached the arched doorway tucked behind a thicket of ivy and stone. The Hollow Loom wasn’t on any map, and it definitely wasn’t supposed to be accessible after dark. But here they were—again—breaking at least six rules with every step.

  The door creaked open before they could knock.

  Inside, the room was lit only by floating candles and glowing thread that wove in slow, shimmering arcs through the air. Books hung suspended by silk cords. The air smelled faintly of old ink and eucalyptus.

  Waiting in the center: Trix Vale, leaning against a loom twice her size, arms folded, smirk sharpened to a blade. Her uniform was in disarray as usual—necktie undone, boots scuffed, no care in the world.

  Beside her stood Roise Elwood, clutching a bundle of notes, her ash-brown hair half-shadowed under her gray hood. Her expression was mild, but her eyes were sharp.

  “Well, well, well,” Trix said dryly, eyes flicking to Kael. “The idiots return.”

  “Trix—” Tavi started, exasperated.

  She cut him off. “Don’t ‘Trix’ me. You nearly got eaten by a Thread Warden and dragged us into your disaster spiral. Again.”

  Kael raised a hand. “Okay, in my defense—”

  “There is no defense,” Trix said, walking a slow circle around him. “You made a book out of a cursed tree. It wrote back. Then you snuck into a sealed corridor, and nearly activated an ancient construct.”

  Roise stepped forward, voice quiet but firm. “And now it’s awake. The Loom Guardian isn’t supposed to stir unless something old is returning.”

  Crowe narrowed his eyes. “You knew about the Threadkeeper?”

  Roise nodded. “Not everything. But enough to know that notebook isn’t just reacting. It’s calling. We think... something’s trying to stitch itself back together.”

  Kael paled. “You mean like a ghost?”

  Trix looked too pleased. “Or worse—an idea.”

  Silence.

  Finally, Kael broke it. “Okay, so you’re... what? Starting a secret club?”

  “No,” Roise said. “We’re trying to keep people from dying.”

  Trix tossed Kael the folded paper crane. “You’re in it now, Ichabod. Whether you like it or not.”

  Kael caught it awkwardly and sighed. “Of course I am.”

  ???

  Soft light filtered through the high arched windows. Snow swirled lazily outside, muffling the world.

  Kael slumped over the armrest of a velvet chair, white cloak wrinkled, his face buried in a pillow.

  “I can’t believe we got scouted into a cryptic nightmare club,” he mumbled.

  “You made the book,” Crowe muttered from the floor, where he was flipping through three open volumes. He’d barely slept—his hair stuck up in every direction, his eyes hollow. “You animated the book. This is your fault.”

  Tavi, seated upside-down in a chair nearby, was tossing a glass orb up and down. “Trix said something about a pattern unraveling. I didn’t listen. She was monologuing.”

  Kael groaned. “How is your sister more terrifying than an eight-armed thread monster?”

  The orb slipped through Tavi’s fingers and hit Kael in the face.

  “OW—okay, I deserved that.”

  Before they could keep bickering, the door creaked open.

  Roise Elwood stepped in quietly, tucking a book under her arm. Her uniform was immaculate, hair pinned back with silver clasps shaped like tiny keys.

  She looked at them and said softly, “You should come. Trix found something in the Archives. About the tree your notebook came from.”

  Kael’s head snapped up. “It’s my tree now?”

  Roise tilted her head. “You named it?”

  “…No,” Kael muttered, getting up. “But now I kind of feel bad for chopping it.”

  Roise ignored that and held the door open. “It’s called a Threadroot. They're not supposed to exist anymore.”

  Tavi stood, stretching. “You’re telling me Kael carved a living spellbook out of a forbidden magical tree.”

  Roise blinked. “Yes.”

  Crowe shut his book with a thud. “Fantastic.”

  As they followed her down the hall, the camera-like gaze of the Academy’s ever-watching statues seemed to tilt after them. Shadows curled in the corners. The silver threads woven into the tapestries along the walls… hummed softly, as if aware of their presence.

  The room was unsettling even before they entered it.

  Circular platforms hovered a few inches above the mist-slicked floor, and there were no windows—only hanging silver chimes that pulsed faintly with trapped sound. Every step echoed longer than it should have, as though the walls were clinging to their voices.

  Kael wrinkled his nose. “Okay, this place gives cursed attic energy.”

  “It’s not cursed,” Roise Elwood murmured as she passed him, her pale ash-brown hair swinging behind her. “It’s calibrated.”

  “Calibrated to what, exactly?” Kael muttered. “An emotional breakdown?”

  Trix Vale, lounging lazily on one of the floating platforms, lifted her head. “You’d know all about those, wouldn’t you?”

  Kael grinned. “Missed you too, sunshine.”

  Their teacher, Professor Nerium Vosk, emerged silently from the mist like a forgotten melody. Draped in faded navy robes lined with mirrored thread, their face was partially veiled, only the mouth and sharp jaw visible. Rumors claimed Vosk had once worked as an archivist for forbidden spells—and left with one still echoing inside them.

  “Welcome,” Vosk said, voice as quiet as thread slipping through a needle. “Today we open the memory vault. You will whisper a name to the echo-stone. The name will answer back.”

  A black crystal was placed on the floor—smooth, tear-shaped, with faint runes carved deep into its surface.

  “One by one,” Vosk continued. “Speak to it. Let the stone listen.”

  They stepped forward, one at a time.

  Trix leaned in first and whispered. The stone rippled violet.

  Roise followed. A soft hum, like rain on glass.

  Tavi crouched next. A dull pulse of green.

  Crowe moved without expression. A flicker of dark blue.

  Then it was Kael’s turn.

  He hesitated. “And what if I don’t have a name?”

  “The stone will choose one for you,” Vosk said, not unkindly. “If it already knows what you’ve forgotten.”

  Kael’s grin faltered.

  Still, he knelt beside the crystal. He considered saying something harmless, but curiosity got the better of him. He leaned in.

  The moment his breath touched the stone—it shuddered.

  The platform he stood on trembled.

  A surge of cold shot up through the air as the crystal pulsed violently silver—and then spoke, in a voice that was not Kael’s, not anyone’s.

  “Brugmansia.”

  A sharp silence dropped across the room.

  Even the chimes stopped ringing.

  Roise’s eyes widened. Trix sat up straight.

  Crowe looked at Kael like he’d just grown a second shadow.

  Kael slowly stood up. “Okay. I don’t even know what that means.”

  But Vosk’s expression had changed.

  “Class dismissed,” the professor said coolly. “Except for you, Mr. Ichabod.”

  Kael groaned. “Every time.”

  The room emptied slowly, but the silence lingered like fog. Trix gave Kael one last strange look before vanishing with a flick of her scarf. Roise hesitated, her eyes searching Kael’s face—then followed the others out.

  The moment the door closed, Professor Vosk turned to Kael.

  Their voice was low, serious. “What is your relationship to the Brugmansias?”

  Kael blinked, the ghost of a joke on his lips—but didn’t say it.

  Instead, for once, he answered honestly.

  “That’s… my father’s last name,” he said slowly. “Or it was. Before he took my mother’s. Ichabod.”

  Vosk’s expression remained unreadable. But he tilted his head slightly, as if Kael’s words confirmed something he'd long suspected.

  “They kept it quiet,” Kael added. “I was a kid when I found a letter with the name on it. My parents burned it before I could ask. Said it didn’t matter.”

  Vosk stepped closer, the silver lining of his robes catching the low crystal light. “Your father chose to abandon a legacy. And yet… the echo remembers.”

  Kael shifted uncomfortably. “Are we talking about, like… a cursed legacy? Or something that involves cursed dinnerware? Because I have questions.”

  Vosk didn’t smile, but there was something softer in his gaze now. A kind of sympathy, filtered through caution.

  “The Brugmansia name belonged to one of the most dangerous wizards in recent magical history,” he said. “Brilliant. Deranged. Vanished fifty years ago after leaving behind rituals no sane person would attempt.”

  Kael blinked. “Cool. Love that for me.”

  “You will not speak that name again. Not in jest. Not aloud,” Vosk said quietly. “But you must know what’s tied to it. Because it clearly hasn’t let go of you.”

  Kael swallowed hard, his voice lighter than he felt. “So… not making the family tree any time soon?”

  Professor Vosk finally allowed a faint smirk to cross his features. “Not unless you’re planting it in salted ground.”

  Kael had barely turned the corner past the crystal-lit corridor when a hand shot out, yanked his collar, and slammed him back-first into the cool stone wall of the nearest lavatory.

  The door swung shut behind them with a soft click.

  Trix Vale stood too close, her elbow braced against the wall beside his head, her expression somewhere between mockery and murder.

  “Well, well, Ichabod,” she purred. “Care to explain why an ancient dark wizard’s name sang to you today?”

  Kael winced dramatically. “Can we not do the villain interrogation in the bathroom? This feels like a health violation.”

  Trix didn’t move. Her slate-gray eyes glittered with razor interest. “Do not deflect with humor. I heard the name Brugmansia echo through you. And now I find out your father just happened to be one of them?”

  Kael’s jaw tensed. “It’s not like I chose it. My father left that name behind. Took my mum’s. They buried it. I only found out by accident.”

  “And now it’s back,” Trix said, voice low. “Lurking in glowing notebooks. Whispering itself through magic older than any of us.”

  “Believe me,” Kael muttered, “if I could politely return this cursed inheritance to sender, I would.”

  Trix leaned in closer, her expression unreadable. “You better hope that name stays buried. Because if you’re lying to us—if you’re one of them—I won’t wait for Vosk to deal with you.”

  Kael gave her a crooked grin despite the tension still crackling between them. “You threatening me, Vale?”

  She tilted her head, whispering just by his ear, “Just… vetting.”

  And then she stepped back with theatrical grace, smoothing her sleeves like nothing had happened.

  “Sweet dreams, legacy boy.”

  Kael exhaled hard as she left, muttering, “Yeah, bathroom’s cursed now. Not going in there again.”

  The heavy wooden door creaked open, and Kael stepped out, brushing dust off his cloak like nothing had happened.

  He looked to his left.

  Tavi and Crowe stood frozen mid-step, wide-eyed. Crowe’s cheeks were turning a suspicious shade of pink.

  Kael blinked. “Hey.”

  Tavi pointed, scandalized. “Why did you just walk out of the girls’ bathroom?!”

  Kael raised an eyebrow, completely unbothered. “It was empty.”

  “That’s not an answer!” Tavi practically shrieked. “TRIX walked out a second before you! What were you two doing in there?!”

  Crowe choked on air.

  Kael tilted his head, completely calm. “Nothing illegal.”

  “That is not reassuring!” Tavi was flailing now. “You—you—you were in there alone with my sister—my sister—”

  “Technically she had me cornered,” Kael added thoughtfully, just to stir the pot.

  Crowe made a sound that could only be described as internal combustion.

  “You’re not helping!” Tavi groaned, yanking at his own hair. “Why are you like this?!”

  Kael shrugged, sliding past them with the most casual strut known to man. “If you must know, she threatened my life. It was weirdly affectionate.”

  “That’s not—Kael!” Tavi spun after him. “YOU CAN’T JUST DROP THAT AND WALK AWAY—”

  Kael just threw a wink over his shoulder. “Girls’ bathroom, Tavi. Keep it classy.”

  Crowe stared at the closed bathroom door for a second longer, then muttered, “I think I need to go lie down.”

  ???

  Kael sat cross-legged on the windowsill, the moonlight sketching silver over his paper as he painted on a thin, dried leaf. He’d pressed it between pages of a herbology book for weeks, and now it curved delicately in his palm like a natural canvas. With precise strokes, he painted miniature constellations using enchanted ink that shimmered when it caught the light.

  Behind him, Tavi and Crowe were fast asleep—Tavi sprawled half-off his bed, snoring with his mouth open, and Crowe curled up like a cat, clutching a pillow like it owed him money.

  Kael had just finished the last star when the book began to glow again.

  It flared open on his desk, pages flipping wildly before stopping on a blank sheet—then began writing on its own in glowing ink.

  Kael flinched. “Oh no. Not again.”

  The letters pulsed in silver.

  “Awaken.”

  He didn’t even think. Kael grabbed the nearest pillow, marched over to the beds, and slapped Tavi across the face with it.

  Tavi yelped awake. “WHAT—WHY—OW—”

  He got halfway through sitting up before Kael turned and smacked Crowe with the other end. “WAKE UP! IT’S HAPPENING!”

  Crowe made a muffled noise that sounded like, “I hate you,” but he sat up groggily anyway.

  Kael didn’t wait. He grabbed his wand, flicked it once—nothing. He flicked it again—a puff of smoke. Third time: a glowing signal rune zipped out the window.

  “I just sent the signal to Trix and Roise,” Kael announced, breathless. “Get your cloaks.”

  “Is that the death book again?” Tavi asked, voice rising.

  “Yes,” Kael snapped. “And now it’s whispering to me. Whispering, Tavi.”

  “I think I need to go back to sleep,” Crowe muttered.

  ???

  Outside – Ten Minutes Later

  Kael paced near the forest edge, book clutched in one hand, wand in the other. Tavi and Crowe stood close behind him, both tense.

  “Maybe they didn’t get the signal,” Tavi said, glancing around nervously. “Maybe they—AHHHH!”

  Two spiders the size of housecats dropped from a nearby tree branch.

  Tavi screamed and jumped behind Crowe, nearly knocking him over. “WHY. WHY IS THAT A THING?!”

  The spiders shimmered—and morphed back into two girls.

  Trix dusted herself off, unfazed. “You said not to get spotted.”

  Roise gave a tiny nod, adjusting her robes. “Spiders are practical.”

  “I’m going to throw up,” Tavi whispered.

  Kael, utterly unfazed, held up the glowing book. “So. It’s back. Again. And I’d like someone else to take this cursed diary of doom before it starts humming Latin backwards.”

  Trix narrowed her eyes. “Show us.”

  The group leaned in as the pages flipped again—this time writing out something new, and more dangerous than before.

  “The seal of Brugmansia is loosening.”

  Roise’s eyes widened. “That’s… impossible.”

  Kael let out a long, slow sigh. “Someone please tell me I didn’t accidentally bind my soul to a famous dead wizard.”