Page 53

To Whisper in the Dark

T he rest of the day passed in a blur of whispers and sidelong glances. By the time evening fell, I was exhausted, my muscles aching from the duel and my mind worn thin from replaying Vivienne's accusations.

Cordelia’s chamber offered sanctuary—quiet corners where curious eyes couldn't follow, where the only judgment came from the ancient portrait of Cordelia herself.

“You’re sure about this?” Lydia’s voice was hushed, her fingers adjusting her glasses with practiced precision. “After everything that happened this morning…”

I touched the amulet at my throat, its surface cool and silent. The Raven’s Echo hadn’t stirred since the duel—as if the violence had lulled it into sleep. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting. If there are answers left, they’re behind Cordelia’s door.”

Bethany scanned the shadows behind us, her copper curls catching glints of moonlight. “No tails,” she said, nodding once. “But we’ve got to move. Maximort’s doing bonus patrols tonight, and I’m pretty sure someone enchanted the east corridor armor to snap at anything that breathes.”

The castle corridors were eerily silent as we made our way through them, our footsteps muffled by threadbare rugs.

Occasionally, portraits stirred as we passed, their painted eyes following us with somber curiosity.

As we rounded the corner that housed Cordelia’s portrait, I felt the relief wash over me.

“Ready?” Leander whispered quietly.

I nodded, then reached out and touched the portrait. The swirling magic enveloped us instantly, spinning the world in a brief rush of wind and color before dropping us gently in the center of the hidden chamber.

I closed my eyes for a second and allowed myself to just be in this calm space. Just hours ago, I was trading blows of magic and will with Vivienne under Coldwell’s hawk-eyed watch.

Now, the quiet here is so absolute I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears. I hadn’t realized how much I was craving this peace until now. A deep, slow breath eased out of me. The knot of tension between my shoulder blades—my souvenir from the duel—began to loosen at last.

We’d spent hours after classes combing the Blackbloom Library for any hint of what we’re seeking—any scrap of information about Cordelia Vale’s research, the missing students, or the Umbra Gate. .

“Nothing new in the archives,” I murmured, pressing my fingers to my temple.

“Just the same half-legible journal entries and vague references we’ve already combed through.

” The sting of failure still lingered—our midnight search through the mosaic alcove had felt like a turning point. Instead, it led us nowhere.

Leander leaned over the map of the academy grounds sprawled across the table, his brow furrowed.

“Cordelia’s trail led us to the library.

.. and the library gave us a brick wall.

” His voice was low, edged with frustration.

“We missed something. It has to be right in front of us—some connection we didn’t see. ”

He dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it wilder than before. Under the lamplight, the dark smudges beneath his eyes looked almost bruised. None of us had slept—not well, not deeply. Not in weeks.

Lydia pushed up her glasses, the flicker of the candle catching the lenses. “It’s like every clue opens a new door, but behind each one is just another lock.” Her voice was soft, thoughtful, but I could hear the exhaustion pulling at the edges.

She smoothed the pages in front of her—Cordelia’s brittle notes, written in looping, ink-blotted script.

“We have her research, the riddle from the map, her obsession with seasonal alignments, and still... nothing. No location. No sign of the Umbra Gate. No connection to what happened to Melanie and Liam.”

Her words hung heavy in the quiet chamber, each of us staring at the puzzle that refused to solve itself.

Bethany let out a quiet, defeated sigh. “And Olivia,” she added. “We can’t pretend her death isn’t connected to all this too.”

We all knew it in our bones—that what happened to Olivia, to Melanie and Liam, wasn’t coincidence. It was tangled up in Cordelia’s secrets, in the whispers of the Umbra Gate. But the how remained just out of reach, like a name you know but can’t say aloud.

I drew my knees to my chest and leaned back against the cold stone. The chill bit through my blouse, the roughness of the wall digging into my spine in a way that grounded me—reminding me I was still here, still fighting to understand.

“It feels like we’re circling something,” I said, barely above a whisper. “Like we’re brushing against the edge of the truth, but not quite close enough to grasp it.”

Lydia’s pen stilled mid-note. Leander didn’t speak.

“Cordelia gave us so much—her journals, that riddle on the map, her blood written into half these pages,” I went on. “We followed every trail. So why can’t we find the next one?”

My gaze drifted across the chamber, finally settling on the portrait hung opposite us—the oil painting of Cordelia Vale.

Time had faded its colors, but the intensity in her eyes remained.

In the flickering candlelight, her expression shifted subtly between sorrow and something else—something sly, almost amused.

It was like she was watching us. Waiting.

Help us, I thought, staring into those painted eyes. We’re trying. We’re still here. We just need to know what you left behind.

Bethany let out a quick, humorless laugh. “If we could simply ask Cordelia, I’m sure she’d tell us exactly what we’re doing wrong,” she muttered, pulling her braid over her shoulder.

She didn’t usually sound this defeated, and hearing it made me ache. In her own brash way, Bethany has been the optimistic heart of our little group—always ready with a joke or encouragement. To see her shoulders sagging and eyes downcast now drove home just how stuck we are.

A soft clink drew my attention—Lydia setting aside her quill. She took a deep breath and looked around at us, her amber eyes keen once more.

“Maybe the problem isn’t what we’re looking for,” Lydia said slowly, “but how we’re looking.”

There was a shift in her tone—familiar and electric. The kind of voice she used when something had finally clicked.

Leander leaned in, eyes narrowing with interest. “Go on.”

Lydia reached for the leather-bound tome beside her, flipping quickly to a page she’d marked with a sliver of ribbon.

I recognized it instantly— Ancient Enchantments: Theory and Practice, the same volume we’d used in Professor Blackwood’s class last month.

“Cordelia’s riddle,” she said, tracing a line of text with her fingertip. “‘A doorway waits in a room unseen. To find the path, let silence fall—speak a word, and all’s in vain.’”

She said it softly, like it was sacred.

I sat up straighter. The words echoed in my mind with new weight.

Let silence fall.

Speak a word, and all’s in vain.

Something flickered in my chest—recognition, like a moth catching fire.

“A Silencing Ward,” I whispered.

At the exact same moment, Bethany sat bolt upright. “The Silencing Ward!”

We locked eyes and grinned. Realization had struck us both, but it was Lydia’s spark that lit the fuse. We’d learned about those wards only weeks ago, back when everything still felt almost... manageable. Since then, the chaos had swept us away from it—until now.

“It’s not just a clue,” I murmured, more to myself. “It’s an instruction.”

Leander’s gaze bounced between us, his brow lifting. “You mean the spell Blackwood used? The one that muffled everything?” There was already a flicker of excitement in his voice.

Lydia nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips. “Exactly. In Ancient Enchantments, we learned how to inscribe wards—Alarm, Divination, Binding—and Silencing. I remember thinking it might be relevant even then.”

As she spoke, she drew the symbol in the air: interwoven lines forming a delicate lattice. The rune for silence. It shimmered faintly before vanishing.

“‘Let silence fall’ wasn’t poetic,” she added. “It was literal.”

I felt a cautious flutter stir in my chest. “We haven’t tried it yet,” I said quietly. “Maybe it’s time we do.”

Bethany leaned forward, her earlier weariness forgotten. “It makes perfect sense,” she said, brushing a curl behind her ear. “If there’s a hidden doorway, maybe sound’s the trigger. All our talking, our pacing—what if that’s what’s keeping it sealed?”

Her green eyes lit up, and for a heartbeat, the weight on my shoulders felt lighter. That was the Bethany I knew—sharp, driven, undeterred by failure.

Leander rubbed his jaw, always the voice of reason. “We’d have to cast it perfectly. A ward that size… that’s not beginner work. Blackwood needed two assistants just to suppress a classroom.”

Lydia’s smile didn’t waver. “Then we’ll work together. Precision over power.”

He wasn’t wrong; weaving a ward isn’t as simple as speaking an incantation. It requires precise rune inscription and a constant feed of willpower.

Lydia waved off the concern with a gentle confidence. “We won’t need to silence an entire hall,” Lydia reasoned, fingers closing around a shard of chalky limestone. “Just ourselves. A small radius is easier to maintain—and we can anchor it together.”

Bethany clapped softly, eyes bright. “If we do this in the library—after curfew—”

“—after curfew, of course,” Leander muttered with mock dismay.

Bethany stuck out her tongue at him before barreling on. “Then we could move around undetected. No footsteps. No whispers. No one outside our little bubble would hear a thing.”

Her voice rose into an animated hush, practically glowing with the thrill of the idea.

“No Crowe hearing us breathe from five aisles over. No... others eavesdropping.”

Her gaze slid toward me, sharp and knowing. I didn’t need her to say it—Edric and Samael hovered at the edge of every discovery now.