Page 35 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

Not the exhaustion of overexertion but something more fundamental. Like consciousness itself has become too heavy to maintain, thoughts too dense to process, reality too complex to parse into understandable components.

My eyes roll back, that last voluntary movement before everything becomes involuntary.

I'm vaguely aware of Atticus's hand tightening on mine, of voices raised in alarm, of the sensation of falling that goes on far longer than the height of any stairs should allow.

But mostly I'm aware of Professor Eternalis's voice.

It echoes all around—not from her position ahead of us but from everywhere and nowhere. The words bounce off surfaces that shouldn't exist, multiply through dimensions that overlap without touching, carry through time that moves in directions other than forward.

"If Wicked Academy was created by love, who were the real creators of its fruition?"

The question feels important. Essential. The kind of truth that rewrites everything else once understood.

"And why was it tainted in wickedness?"

I want to answer.

The words crowd in my throat, desperate to escape. I know something about this—memories inherited or experienced or glimpsed through waters that shouldn't exist. Gabriel and I playing in shadow-meadows. Parents who spoke of creation rather than inheritance.

Elena's face twisted with jealousy that would become betrayal.

But consciousness is failing faster than words can form.

The last thing I'm aware of before everything goes black isn't the falling or the voices or even the weight of exhaustion.

It's the question echoing through dimensions:

Why was it tainted in wickedness?

As if the Academy itself wants to know.

Waiting centuries for someone who might remember the answer.

As though we're not students but keys to locks the Academy has been trying to open since its creation.

Darkness takes me, but it's not the comforting dark of Cassius's shadows or the peaceful dark of sleep.

This is the dark between possibilities, where multiple realities exist before observation collapses them into single truth.

And in that darkness, I dream.

Or remember.

Or both.

The distinction doesn't matter in spaces where time moves sideways and memory can be prophecy if you're looking at it from the right angle.

I dream or remember a time when the Academy was new.

When buildings rose from will rather than construction, when bridges spanned spaces between hearts rather than structures. When two children who would become three through cruelty not yet imagined ran through halls that sang with joy rather than screamed with anguish.

I dream and remember the moment love became loss.

Not gradually but instantly, transformation as complete as severing head from body. One moment, the Academy breathed with life. The next, it gasped with dying. The transition marked by betrayal so fundamental that reality itself had to be rewritten to accommodate it.

I dream and remember Elena's face.

Not twisted with jealousy yet but bright with determination. She's speaking words I can't quite hear, performing ritual I can't quite see, reaching for power that was never meant to be grasped by hands that would use it for vengeance rather than creation.

But the memory dream fractures before revelation.

Like looking at picture through broken glass—I can see pieces but not pattern, fragments but not full image.

Someone is shaking me.

Multiple someones, actually. Voices overlap in concern that borders on panic, hands checking for pulse that's apparently hard to find, magic probing for damage that might explain sudden collapse.

But I'm not unconscious.

Not exactly.

I exist in the space between waking and sleeping, where consciousness is negotiable rather than binary. I can hear them but can't respond.

Can feel them but can't move.

Can understand but can't process.

"—just collapsed ? —"

"—breathing but barely ? —"

"—something's wrong with the Academy ? —"

"—all seeing it now ? —"

That last voice is Zeke, his usual calm cracked enough to let concern through.

All seeing it now.

So it wasn't just me. The flickering reality, the burning buildings, the stairs that exist in too many dimensions simultaneously—everyone is experiencing it now.

"The Academy is destabilizing."

Professor Eternalis's voice cuts through the others with authority that demands attention even from my semi-conscious state.

"Or more accurately, it's remembering."

Remembering what?

I want to ask but can't make my mouth work.

"The arrival of true heirs after so long, the presence of bonds that mirror the original design—it's triggering something we didn't anticipate."

True heirs.

Plural.

Not just me but Gabriel too.

The original children who played in shadow-meadows before betrayal made play impossible?

"We need to get her somewhere stable," Cassius says, and his voice carries the particular edge of someone holding onto control by fingernails. "The shadows here are... wrong. They're not responding properly."

"Nothing is responding properly," Mortimer adds, scholarly composure cracking. "The fundamental forces that hold this place together are arguing with themselves about what's real."

"Then we make our own real," Atticus declares with vampire certainty that brooks no argument.

I feel myself being lifted—multiple hands ensuring I don't fall even though I'm already falling through dimensions that exist parallel to the one my body occupies.

"The dormitory," Professor Eternalis says. "It's warded against temporal fluctuation. Should provide stability until?—"

"Until what?" Nikolai demands, and there's desperation in his voice that makes my chest tight even through the dissociation.

"Until the Academy decides whether to accept or reject what it's remembering."

The words should be ominous but somehow feel hopeful. The Academy isn't just testing us—it's testing itself. Remembering what it was before it became what it is.

Love before wickedness.

Creation before destruction.

Unity before betrayal split everything into fragments that pretend to be whole.

Movement.

We're moving, though I can't tell if it's through space or time or something that exists in the angles between both. The sensation is nauseating and comforting simultaneously—progress and stasis occupying the same moment.

Voices continue around me, planning and worrying and theorizing about what's happening.

But I'm drifting deeper, consciousness fragmenting like the stairs we were climbing.

Part of me walks with them, carried but present.

Part of me still falls through endless stairs that exist in every direction except the one that leads anywhere.

Part of me stands in memory that might be history or might be hope, watching two children who don't yet know they'll become one, playing in an Academy that doesn't yet know it will be broken.

"Hold on, Gwenievere."

The voice is multiple—Cassius, Atticus, and Nikolai speaking in unison or maybe just their concern harmonizing into single sound.

"We've got you."

And they do.

Even as reality argues with itself about what's real, even as the Academy remembers trauma it's been trying to forget for centuries, even as consciousness becomes optional rather than required—they hold on.

Was this what Professor Eternalis meant about bonds being strongest.

Not just magical connections but the choice to hold on when letting go would be easier.

The determination to maintain connection even when the connecting medium becomes uncertain.

The faith that together means something even when together exists in multiple dimensions that don't quite touch but desperately want to.

Darkness pulls me deeper, but it's different now.

Not the dark of ending but the dark before beginning.

Like the Academy itself is taking a breath before deciding what comes next.

And in that breath, in that pause between heartbeats of a heart that might be building or breaking?—

I remember/dream/experience something that might be true:

The Academy wasn't created by its builders.

It was created by its heirs…

Us…

The thought follows me into complete unconsciousness, where dreams, memories, and possibilities dance together in space that exists between what was and what might be.

And somewhere in that dance, I hear Elena laughing.

Not with cruelty but with joy.

The sound of a sister who hasn't yet learned to hate.

The melody of love before it was tainted.

The piece of what we're all trying to remember.

Or forget…