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“Follow your intuition. The place has already revealed itself to you. You’ve stood on its edge.

You’ve looked into its bones. You may not have realized what you saw at the time—but your magic did.

” He paused. “I cannot tell you where. If I do, I tempt fate, and I am no longer permitted that luxury.”

I studied him carefully, a dozen pieces snapping into place behind my eyes. His calm restraint. His distance from the other professors. The sense of weight behind everything he said.

“You’re a Master of Divination,” I murmured.

“And of History,” he added with a small nod. “I study what was, and what may yet be. In doing so, I’ve learned that some truths—are like doors. Once opened, they refuse to close.”

He took a long breath, as though weighing his next words carefully.

“I am one hundred and twelve years old, Miss Vale. I have learned many things.”

I blinked, caught off guard.

“You—you don’t look it.”

His mouth lifted into a faint, wry smile. “Age is different for those of us who serve the threads of fate. The years have been kind to my body, but not always to my mind. I’ve seen more than I care to remember, but not enough to change what must be.”

The silence stretched between us, and this time, I didn’t look away.

“So why now?” I asked quietly. “Why tell me this? Why not someone else?”

He tilted his head slightly, almost like a bird listening to a far-off sound.

“Because you are standing at a crossroads. You’ve been marked—not by destiny, not yet—but by intention. Someone, somewhere, is watching you, and they’ve already made one mistake.”

He paused, the air between us taut.

Then, his voice dropped into something quieter—something meant only for me.

“Tell me, Miss Vale—does witnessing your own death still haunt you?”

The question stole the breath from my lungs.

I swallowed hard. “I—” But I didn’t know how to answer.

Because I had seen it—again and again—in dreams that didn’t feel like dreams. Visions so vivid I’d wake with the cold sweat of finality clinging to my skin.

I’d seen blood on my hands. Shadows rising behind me.

The moment before the end, repeating in different shapes but always with the same conclusion.

“I’ve felt it,” I whispered. “Like something chasing me that already caught me once.”

Crowe nodded solemnly, as though he’d expected the answer.

“It’s not a ghost,” he said. “It’s a thread you brushed against and haven’t quite shaken free. That’s why I need to tell you the truth.”

He stepped closer, his blind eyes drifting just past mine but locking me in place all the same.

“Olivia Fairweather was not the intended target.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“What?”

“The one who killed her—believed she was you.”

A chill gripped me, sudden and unforgiving. The words hung in the still air like frost on glass, impossible to look through.

“That’s not possible,” I said, my voice barely audible. “She wasn’t involved. She didn’t even—she didn’t know anything.”

“She didn’t,” Crowe confirmed gently. “Olivia Fairweather knew nothing of the amulets, the portals, or your lineage. She wasn’t part of the search. She was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

The edges of my vision swam slightly. I forced myself to stay still.

“Then why her?”

“Because she looked like you,” he said. “Not exactly. But enough. She shared your height. Your build. Your coloring, and in the dark, from a distance—that became a poetic disaster for someone who had already decided they were going to act.”

My breath hitched.

I remembered flashes—Olivia walking across the courtyard one evening, her ebony braid swinging behind her, shoulders squared in that quiet, studious way she moved. I’d barely paid her attention then, and now—now it was all I could see.

“You’re saying—someone was watching me,” I whispered, the edges of the thought slicing deep.

Crowe didn’t need to answer. His silence said everything.

“And they got it wrong.”

He nodded slowly. “By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late. The act had already been committed.”

I stared at him, trying to process the impossibility of it. That someone had followed me. Had studied me. Had planned to take my life—and instead took the life of someone who had no part in any of it.

“She died because of me.”

“No,” Crowe said firmly, his voice sharper than before. “She died because someone made a choice. One born of cruelty, not fate. The guilt is not yours to carry, but the truth is.”

I turned away, needing the shift in perspective just to breathe. My thoughts were unraveling, falling away from me like leaves caught in wind.

“They were watching me,” I whispered. “How long?”

“Long enough,” he replied. “Long enough to mark you, but not long enough to see what sets you apart.”

I clenched my fists at my sides, digging my nails deep until I felt the raw sting of pain. “Then what do I do with this? With the knowledge that I was meant to die, that someone else died in my place?”

He didn’t answer right away.

When he did, his voice was softer. Measured. “You remember her, and you do not let fear shrink the space you were meant to fill. You survive. You follow the thread Cordelia left you. You finish what others never had the chance to begin.”

My throat burned, but I nodded. Slowly. The weight hadn’t lessened, but it had reshaped—grief no longer aimless but sharpened into purpose.

“Be cautious, Elvana,” Crowe added, the final note in his voice somber and deliberate. “The danger you fear doesn’t always hide in shadow. Sometimes it walks in the light. Sometimes—it smiles.”

I turned toward the long corridor of shelves, my steps slow, but certain. Something about the way he stood there—the quiet gravity, the warning folded into every word—burned into me like a second brand.

When I left the library behind, snow beginning to fall anew outside the stone archway, I carried more than just questions.

I carried the truth.