Raziel had to find Seraphina.
The search had turned into an obsession that was burning him up from the inside.
He had interrogated every initiate, every scribe with a sleepy face, and even cornered a couple of nervous priests in the cloisters.
But it was like she had vanished, deleted from the script of reality.
A ghost story started circulating through the hallways, the instructors feigned dementia, but Raziel knew she was still breathing somewhere.
So he took refuge in the only place where lies couldn't hide completely: the Restricted Section.
His fingers, stained with ink, moved frantically over the spines of forbidden books, looking for a glitch, a clue, a name out of place.
"You're wasting your time, you know?"
Raziel looked up suddenly, his heart hammering in his chest.
Elijah was in the door frame, with that look of moral superiority that turned his stomach, holding a pile of scrolls like it was a shield.
"What are you talking about?"
Elijah walked in, wandering his gaze over the forbidden shelves with fake curiosity.
"Seraphina, you know she's gone. You won't find her here, Raziel, no matter how many dusty books you read."
The blue-haired boy glared at him.
"You don't know that, she has to be somewhere."
Elijah sighed, an exasperated sound that pretended to be compassionate, and dropped the scrolls on a table with a dry thud.
"I know you were close to her, but sometimes you have to accept things. She disappeared, people do that."
"No," Raziel said, his jaw so tense it hurt. "I'm not accepting shit without knowing what happened."
Elijah watched him for a second more and then nodded slowly, defeated.
That night, the silence in the library was almost hurtful.
Raziel was reading a book that was falling apart in his hands, one of the official texts about the "Miracles of Zhalyr."
Then, a paragraph hidden at the end of a chapter hit him like a punch in the stomach.
It described a group of rebel priests from centuries ago who tried to twist the goddess's gifts for their own ends.
Necromancers.
That word.
He had always thought it was an old wives' tale, a myth to scare novices who skipped prayers.
But now, remembering Zion's attack, everything clicked.
The unnatural cold that had filled the cathedral, the shadows twisting like snakes... it wasn't elemental magic, but something profane, something dead.
He kept reading with his pulse racing, the book said the Inquisition had hunted them down to the last man, but the final words of the text were a warning:
"The seeds of darkness are not easily destroyed. They can sleep for generations, waiting for the fertile soil of ambition to bloom again."
SLAM!
He closed the book violently.
It was connected to Seraphina's disappearance and the message written in blood on the wall.
Something was watching him from the shadows, waiting for a mistake.
Exhaustion hit him suddenly.
Knowing the future and not being able to change it was crushing.
He rubbed his eyes, fighting against the veil of sleep, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You look terrible, Raz. Summer is already here, it's time to relax, you know?"
Lucian smiled at him with that light and carefree tone that Raziel sometimes envied and other times hated.
The blue-haired boy looked up, his patience hanging by a thread.
"Do you never take anything seriously? Seraphina is missing, the examiners are watching me like I'm a heretic, and you want to have fun?"
Lucian shrugged, unfazed.
"Relax. Seraphina is probably on some boring mission, she'll show up and about the examiners... screw them. They are just bitter old men."
He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone.
"Besides, I have a plan. Tomorrow I'm going to the capital. I need to pick up some things. Want to come? We can eat something that isn't hard bread and get out of this lockdown."
Raziel rolled his eyes.
A field trip? It seemed like Lucian was treating him like a child who needed a distraction.
"The capital?" Raziel asked.
"Did you hit your head in training? Father Marius gave me a 'summer penitence'. I am under house arrest on the campus, Lucian, and if I set one foot outside, they expel me."
Lucian let out a short laugh, pulled a folded scroll from his robe, and waved it in front of Raziel's face.
It had a red wax seal with the emblem of a Wolf: House Nyxian.
"That's the cute thing about you commoners. You think the rules are the same for everyone." Lucian threw the scroll at him and Raziel caught it in the air.
Raziel opened it.
"By order of the Nyxian Duchy, the assistance of Novice Raziel Celeste is required as spiritual companion and auxiliary advisor for Heir Lucian Valerius on his pilgrimage to the Capital. Immediate Authorization. Signed: Duke Valerius."
"What the hell is this?" whispered Raziel. "Auxiliary advisor?"
"My father pulls the strings, Marius is just a puppet," Lucian said with a predatory smile, taking a step closer.
"Marius was furious, spitting saliva when I handed him the order. He couldn't refuse my father without losing half the temple's donations so basically, I bought your freedom, Raz."
"Why?" asked Raziel, hardening his gaze.
"Until yesterday you called me 'orphan' and tried to make my life impossible. We aren't friends, Lucian, don't insult me by pretending we are."
Lucian's smile didn't waver, there was the politician, not the spoiled kid.
"You're right, we aren't friends." Lucian crossed his arms.
"But that song of yours... that thing you did in the exam... it gave me chills, and I don't get scared easily."
"I'm going to the capital to look for something dangerous in my father's collection, so I need someone who won't piss their pants if things get ugly. Gideon and Mark are strong, but they are idiots. You... you have darkness in your head."
"You are using me."
"I am giving you a way out of this cage," Lucian corrected.
"I get you out of Marius's claws and give you access to a Duke's library, and you watch my back if something goes wrong. " Lucian went back to his usual mocking tone.
"I get bored if I travel alone with servants who say yes to everything. I need entertainment."
It was a trap. Lucian wanted to use him as a danger detector or a human shield.
But the Nyxian Collection... there could be clues about the Echoes, about Seraphina, about everything.
Staying meant dying slowly under Marius's surveillance.
Leaving was walking into the wolf's den, but at least the wolf had books.
"If I try to escape in the capital, will you rat me out?"
"I'll hunt you down myself," promised Lucian, winking an eye.
"We leave at dawn. And don't bring your poor people clothes, I'll give you something decent, I don't want them to think I travel with a beggar."