By the time dusk fell, Evelyn had stopped pretending to focus in class. Whispers buzzed through the Academy halls like gnats—unconfirmed suspicions, vanishing evidence, rumors of forged letters, and two professors who were quietly dismissed that morning.
It was unraveling.
And someone was trying to clean it up before it all fell apart.
Alexander hadn't spoken to her since the garden. He hadn't needed to. The way he looked at her when she took that flower from Caelan—his silence said more than a thousand words. But right now, feelings would have to wait.
There was a shadow in the Academy.
And it was beginning to slip.
She wasn't surprised when he found her that evening near the observatory tower.
"I have something to show you," Alexander said, tone low, clipped.
They walked in silence. This time, she didn't try to fill it.
He led her to the east wing. A place Evelyn rarely visited—too old, too dusty, once used for alchemy. It had been sealed since the last magical accident years ago. Or so she'd been told.
Alexander pressed his hand against the old runes etched into the door. The wards shuddered, then fell.
Inside was darkness, faintly lit by violet shimmerstones.
And a desk piled with correspondence.
Evelyn stepped in slowly, eyes scanning the parchment. Letters. Lists. Class schedules.
And a note. One she recognized.
Her handwriting.
"What is this?" she asked quietly.
"They've been forging your signature," Alexander replied. "Sending messages in your name to faculty. Setting traps. Coordinating."
Her blood chilled. "Why?"
"To turn the Academy against you."
He pulled another letter from the desk. This one addressed to the Headmaster, suggesting Evelyn had been misusing forbidden spells.
She shook her head. "I never—"
"I know," he said, voice quiet but firm. "But it was enough. Enough to put eyes on you. To keep you isolated. We just didn't see it."
Evelyn's gaze darkened. "Who's behind it?"
"We'll know by tomorrow," Alexander said. "I left a trail in this room. The kind only a co-conspirator would follow."
She looked up at him.
And saw it again—beneath the frost, beneath the restraint. The storm.
"You planned a trap," she whispered.
His lips lifted—barely. "You inspired it."
For a second, the tension shifted from danger… to something else entirely.
But footsteps echoed outside the room, fast and unguarded.
The bait had worked.
Someone had come back to hide the evidence.
And the game was about to end.