Like she had called me here.
"I checked the records," she said without turning. Her fingers traced the spines of the books like they were breathing things. "There's no file on you before age thirteen. Not in any school. Not in any hospital."
My throat closed. I didn't move.
She turned her head then—slow, deliberate. Her eyes locked onto mine. "What were you before, Adrian?"
"I—" My voice failed. "That's impossible."
Her expression didn't change. "Is it?"
She stood and walked toward me. The air between us felt sharp, like broken glass.
"You have nightmares you can't explain. A memory of a house you've never seen. You've been drawing that symbol"—she reached up, touched the edge of my collarbone—"since you were fourteen, and you don't even remember when it started."
I flinched.
Because I had been drawing it. The curve and the slash and the circle. In notebooks. On the backs of tests. In the fogged mirror after showers.
"I don't know what it means," I muttered.
"But I do."
She stepped closer. I could see the scar on her temple now, partly hidden by her hair. Thin. Pale. Healed, but never forgotten.
"They used to call it The Lock. A seal, placed on children like you. Those who saw too much. Felt too much. Did too much."
My pulse was deafening in my ears. "What do you mean 'like me'?"
"You were part of something before St. August's. Before the Vale family adopted you. They didn't find you in the system, Adrian. They made you."
I staggered back like she'd hit me.
"No," I said, but my voice was empty.
"Yes," she said. "And you knew. Once. Before they erased it. Before they shoved everything you were beneath the floorboards of your mind and nailed it shut."
I shook my head. "You're lying."
She touched my face—softly, gently. Not like someone comforting. Like someone remembering.
"I'm the only one who isn't."
Silence. Long. Chilling.
Then the lights above us flickered, and somewhere deep within the library, something groaned. Wood, maybe. Or memory.
And suddenly, I remembered something.
It wasn't a full memory, not yet. Just a flash. The edge of a room. Screaming. My hands, smaller. Bloody. A girl with her mouth stitched shut, staring at me through glass.
I stumbled forward, clutching the shelves.
Rhea caught me.
"Do you want to know what's beneath your floorboards?" she whispered.
I wanted to say no.
I really did.
But I nodded.
And when she smiled, it wasn't comfort.
It was warning.