Night in Agragore was not the absence of light.
It was a different kind of brightness, softer and more deliberate, threaded through the academy's stone corridors like a slow-moving breath. Lanterns did not flicker. They glowed with a steady calm that made Genevieve feel as though she were the only unsteady thing within these walls.
Her room was warm, far warmer than the cottage had ever been in the cold seasons. A small hearth sat set into the stone, though no fire burned within it. The heat seemed to rise from the room itself, gentle and constant. The bed was neatly made with pale sheets and a thick quilt folded at the foot, and a desk stood beneath the window with fresh parchment stacked as if waiting for her.
As if she were expected to write down everything she didn't understand.
Genevieve hovered near the doorway for a long moment after it closed behind her. Her hand remained on the latch, not because she meant to leave, but because the act of holding something familiar, something she could control, made it easier to breathe.
Sylvester hopped inside and circled the room, nose twitching. He inspected the corners, the bedposts, the edge of the hearth, then paused near the window and stared out.
"There are wards," he said quietly.
Genevieve swallowed. "For protection?"
Sylvester's ears tilted slightly. "Protection is a convenient word."
She crossed to the window and looked out.
Agragore's inner grounds stretched beneath the night sky like an entirely separate world. Courtyards and walkways formed precise patterns, their pale stone catching the glow of enchanted lanterns. Tower silhouettes rose into the dark like watchful figures, and faint lines of light moved along the academy's architecture, running like veins beneath skin.
It was beautiful.
It was terrifying.
Behind her, the door creaked softly.
Genevieve turned sharply.
No one entered. The latch simply shifted, settling again as if the wood had breathed.
Sylvester noticed too. "It's listening," he murmured.
Genevieve forced herself to sit at the desk. She placed Winston's small book beside the parchment, then stared at it without opening either. Her fingers traced the edges of the desk, feeling the smoothness of its surface, so different from her own worn wood at home.
Home.
The thought tightened her throat.
She had never been away from the cottage at night. Not truly. Even when she stayed at the Hawthorne Guesthouse, Winston's family made the rooms feel familiar with their warmth and noise and constant motion. Here, the silence was not empty. It was attentive.
She did not like being the only thing making sound.
A faint rustle came from the corridor beyond her door. Not footsteps exactly. More like fabric brushing against stone. Then a murmur, too quiet to make out.
Genevieve held her breath.
The murmur returned, and this time she caught a few words, drifting through the wood as if the door were thinner than it appeared.
"…the glow was unusual…"
"…summoned, not accepted…"
"…council will decide by morning…"
Her heart thudded.
Sylvester hopped onto the desk beside her, his small weight steadying. "Do not listen too closely," he warned.
"Why?" she whispered.
"Because they want you to."
Genevieve's hands clenched. She hated that he was right. She hated that she was beginning to understand the shape of this place. Not a school. Not yet. A measuring scale. A lock deciding whether she was a key or a threat.
She forced herself to stand and move again, to make the room feel smaller, more hers. She unpacked her clothing slowly, placing each item neatly into the drawers. She set her ribbon atop the desk, then paused when her fingers brushed the folded letter from Agragore.
Her summons.
She stared at the seal, remembering the way her magic had responded to it, the way the sigil had glimmered as though it recognized her.
Recognized.
The word returned uninvited.
Genevieve's chest tightened with a strange, restless pressure, the same sensation she had felt on the road and at the gates. Invisible threads tugged faintly at her, drawing her attention outward, toward something beyond the room.
Her magic stirred.
Not violently. Not yet.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm it, breathing the way she always had. In through the nose, slow and steady. Out through the mouth. Focus on the weight of her body, the press of her feet against the floor. Focus on Sylvester's presence.
But the magic did not settle.
It seemed to lean toward the window instead, toward the grounds beyond, as if something out there called to it.
Genevieve opened her eyes and looked out again.
A single lantern far below flickered for the first time since she arrived.
Then another.
Then a third.
The lights did not go out. They simply shifted, brightening and dimming in a pattern too deliberate to be random.
Sylvester's fur lifted slightly along his back. "Rose," he said, voice low. "Step away from the window."
"What is it?" she whispered.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But it feels like an invitation."
Genevieve took one step back.
The pressure in her chest surged.
A sharp, bright spark burst from her fingertips, striking the air near the glass. The window shimmered as the spark touched it, spreading into thin lines of light like cracks in ice, though the glass did not break. The room filled with a low hum, the wards reacting instantly.
Genevieve gasped and stumbled back, clutching her hand to her chest.
The lines vanished as quickly as they appeared.
But the hum remained, low and vibrating through the stones beneath her feet.
Sylvester leapt down from the desk and pressed himself against her ankle as if anchoring her. "Do not panic," he murmured urgently. "That's what they want."
Genevieve swallowed hard. "I didn't mean to."
"I know."
The hum deepened.
And then, from somewhere beyond her door, a clear click sounded. Not the latch this time.
A mechanism.
As if something had just been activated.
Genevieve stared at the door, her pulse loud in her ears.
She waited for footsteps. For voices. For anyone to enter.
No one did.
Instead, a soft glow appeared above the doorframe, a symbol forming briefly in the air, delicate and precise. It hovered for a moment, then faded.
Sylvester's eyes narrowed. "They marked the room."
Genevieve's throat went dry. "Why?"
Sylvester did not answer right away. He seemed to be listening, not with his ears, but with something deeper. His nose twitched faintly, and his tail stilled.
Finally, he spoke, voice quiet but firm. "Because something inside you touched something inside Agragore."
Genevieve's hands trembled. She forced herself to sit on the edge of the bed, clutching the quilt tightly as though it could keep her grounded.
"I don't want to be a curiosity," she whispered.
Sylvester hopped up beside her and pressed his head gently against her arm. "Then don't let them make you one."
Outside, the lanterns on the grounds returned to their steady glow, as if nothing had happened.
But Genevieve could not forget the brief pattern. The way the lights had responded. The way her magic had leapt toward it without permission.
The academy wasn't only observing her.
It was calling to her.
And somewhere deep in the stone bones of Agragore, something had answered back.
Genevieve lay down slowly, though sleep felt impossible now. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the quiet hum in the walls, to the distant sounds of the academy breathing, shifting, watching.
Her magic still stirred faintly beneath her skin, unsettled and alert.
Tonight was only the first night.
And already, Agragore had begun to press its hand against the shape of her life, testing where she would bend and where she would break.