Page 25 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)
The platform grows larger as we approach, details becoming visible that distance had hidden.
The stone isn't natural—it's carved with symbols that hurt to look at directly, each one seeming to shift when observed.
The pedestal at its center is crystal, but not clear.
It's filled with something that moves like smoke but catches light like water.
And above it, floating in a sphere of soft luminescence, is the third key.
It's different from the others.
Where the first burned with internal fire and the second contained captured starlight, this one seems to hold nothing . Not emptiness—nothing.
A void given form, absence made tangible.
Looking at it makes my chest tight with recognition I don't understand.
We're close now, maybe thirty feet from the platform's edge. The others begin preparing to disembark—weapons checked, magic gathered, awareness sharpened for whatever trial awaits.
"Everyone be ready," Cassius warns, his shadows already extending toward the platform like scouts. "This has been too easy."
He's right. After the battles with previous guardians, this peaceful crossing feels like a trap waiting to spring.
But what choice do we have? The key waits.
The Academy demands its price.
The boat bumps against the platform with a hollow sound that echoes longer than it should.
One by one, the others step off—Cassius first, shadows spreading to check for danger.
Then Atticus, moving with vampire grace to secure a perimeter.
Mortimer follows, scholarly caution balanced with dragon preparedness.
Zeke flows onto the platform like liquid cat, every sense alert.
Nikolai is last, maintaining the wind until everyone else is safe before letting the magic dissipate.
Everyone except me.
I remain seated on the boat, something holding me in place. Not fear exactly, but... recognition.
This place feels familiar in a way that makes my child-stomach queasy.
I turn to look back at the shore we came from, and the strangest sensation washes over me. Like déjà vu in reverse—not feeling like I've been here before, but like I'm supposed to be here. Destined to be here.
"Why is it familiar?" I whisper to myself, the words barely audible over the sound of water that doesn't lap or move but simply exists .
A hand covers mine.
Not large and cool like Cassius's. Small. Warm. Familiar in a way that goes beyond skin.
I look to find child Gabriel sitting beside me, his appearance as sudden as always but somehow expected. His silver hair catches light that doesn't exist, and those impossible eyes hold knowledge that makes him ancient despite his young face.
"This is the place where she got her wish," he whispers, his voice carrying weight that has nothing to do with volume.
"Who got their wish?" I whisper back, something about this moment demanding hushed tones.
Our eyes meet, and in his gaze I see reflected memories that feel like watching through frosted glass—there but distorted, real but removed.
"Elena."
The name lands like a stone in still water, sending ripples through consciousness that transform everything they touch.
The world shifts .
Not physically—we don't move. But suddenly we're not just on the boat. We're in the boat and also elsewhere , witnesses to moments that happened before we became we.
We're running.
Smaller even than our current child-forms—maybe four years old. Our legs pump desperately, trying to keep up with parents who move with urgency that transforms them from the gods of our small world into something frightened. Human. Fallible.
Behind us, the Academy crumbles.
Not slowly, not with the dignity of aged architecture accepting its time.
This is violent destruction—towers falling like severed limbs, bridges of moonlight shattering into fragments that rain down like deadly stars.
The sound is overwhelming: stone screaming, magic dying, the particular silence that follows when something ancient finally ends.
"Mommy!" I hear myself cry—voice even higher than my current child-tone, piping with fear that has no defense. "Where will we be?"
Mother turns without stopping, her face a mask of controlled terror that she's trying to hide for our sake.
The crown of fire above her head flickers erratically, responding to emotions she can't quite suppress.
"We'll be safe, little flame," she says, but the words taste like lies even to a six-year-old ears. "Father and I will take as many students to the Fae realms further below!"
Father's voice joins hers, deeper but no less strained.
"The water will guide you to the gates. Follow the current, trust the flow. It knows where those of royal blood must go."
Even in memory, even through the filter of age and trauma, I can feel the magic in his words. Not metaphor but instruction, each syllable carrying weight of prophecy or curse.
"Protect the chalice at all costs!" Mother's scream cuts through the sound of destruction, her usual composure completely shattered.
Gabriel—my Gabriel, not the one sitting beside me but the one in memory—tries to stop running. His small form plants itself with stubbornness that will later become legendary.
"But we're not strong enough to protect it!"
The statement is logical. We're six. We can barely dress ourselves, let alone protect artifacts of power. But Mother and Father exchange a look that carries entire conversations in a glance.
Mother drops to her knees before us, her hands cupping both our faces with gentleness that contrasts the chaos around us. When she speaks, her voice carries the particular tone of truth that demands recording.
"This Academy was built not by our inspiration, but the both of yours."
The words don't make sense. We're six. We didn't build anything except tower blocks and mud pies. But she continues, urgency making her speak faster.
"The chalice may be the key to its domination, but the rulers are the creators of its memorizing halls. Without its creators, the Academy will remain lost until they return."
Father's hand joins hers, his touch on our heads feeling like blessing and burden combined.
"Do what is necessary to live, our heirs. Whatever that means, whatever that costs. Live ."
Mother's crown flares with sudden intensity, and her next words carry the weight of true curse—the kind that reshapes reality through sheer force of will.
"Whoever has forsaken us will be plagued with sickness when they least expect it. Their betrayal will rot them from within, slow enough to suffer, fast enough that no cure can catch it."
The memory shatters .
I blink, disoriented by the sudden return to present.
Whoever forsake us…so we were betrayed. We had to run…but mom cursed them. Sickness…would that mean…Elena…she…
I'm still on the boat, still child-sized, still holding Gabriel's hand.
But I'm alone.
The realization hits with the particular terror of abandonment made real. Gabriel is gone—not just from beside me but from everywhere, pulled back into whatever space he occupies when not manifested.
What’s more terrifying?
I'm no longer at the shore.
The platform with the others has somehow become distant, separated by water that has no right to be there. They're fighting against something I can't see—a barrier of pure force that makes the air around them ripple like heat waves.
I can see their desperation in every movement.
Cassius's shadows slam against the invisible wall with enough force to shatter stone, but they simply dissipate on contact.
Atticus's blood weapons strike and dissolve.
Mortimer's dragon fire spreads across the barrier's surface but can't penetrate.
Even Zeke's ice, usually so effective at finding cracks, simply slides off like water on glass.
They're screaming something—mouths open, faces contorted with urgency—but no sound reaches me.
The silence is absolute, as if I exist in a bubble separate from their reality.
That's when I notice the motion.
The boat is spinning.
Not quickly at first, just a lazy rotation that could be dismissed as current. But as I watch the platform rotate past again— and again, faster now —I realize what's happening.
The water beneath me has become a whirlpool.
The surface remains deceptively calm, but I can feel the pull now. Centrifugal force trying to drag the boat toward the edges while the center drops away into depths that shouldn't exist.
"Help!" The scream tears from my throat with child-pitch that makes it even more desperate. "HELP!"
But they can't hear me.
Can't reach me. Can't save me.
I'm alone with water I don't understand and a fate that's approaching with the particular inevitability of physics.
Another memory surfaces—not violently like the first but with the gentle insistence of truth ready to be acknowledged.
We're walking through the Academy halls—before the destruction, before Elena's betrayal, when the world still made sense.
Father leads while Gabriel and I follow, our small hands clasped together because that's how we always walked—connected, inseparable, two halves of something that didn't yet know it could be broken.
"Daddy!" My voice pipes with indignation that only a child can achieve. "That's not fair! The Academy is just for boys? That's racist!"
Gabriel groans with the particular exhaustion as if he’s the older sibling—even though we're twins, he emerged second but doesn’t mean it doesn’t stop and try to reverse the roles.
"Where did you even hear that word? And it's 'sexist,' not 'racist.'"
I huff with six-year-old certainty. "I read it in the dictionary!"
The lie is obvious—I can't read yet, dictionary or otherwise. But I've heard adults use big words when they're upset, and this seems like a situation that deserves big words.
"Now Daddy, answer!"