Page 36 of Academy of the Wicked, Year Three (The Paranormal Elites of Wicked Academy #3)

The Labyrinth Of Memories

~GWENIEVERE~

C onsciousness returns like surfacing from deep water—gradual, then all at once.

My eyes open to unfamiliarity that makes my chest tight with immediate panic. This isn't where I fell. Isn't where my companions were carrying me.

Isn't anywhere I recognize from our journey through the Academy grounds.

I'm alone.

The realization hits with the particular terror of isolation in hostile territory. No Cassius with his protective shadows. No Atticus with his vampire strength. No Nikolai, Mortimer, Zeke—just me in a room that shouldn't exist but does.

I push myself upright, muscles protesting the movement with aches that suggest I've been unconscious for more than minutes. The bed beneath me is simple but quality—dark wood frame, sheets that feel like silk but look like shadow woven into fabric.

But it's what I'm wearing that makes me pause.

Gone are the torn clothes from our trials.

Instead, I'm dressed in what must be the official Year Three uniform, and it's nothing like the previous years' attire.

Leather pants hug my legs with the particular fit of clothing tailored by magic rather than measurement.

The material is black but not uniformly—it shifts between matte and gloss depending on how light hits it, creating patterns that seem to move with their own purpose.

They're practical but undeniably aesthetic, the kind of clothing that says its wearer is expected to fight and look good doing it.

The white button-up shirt provides stark contrast, its crisp fabric somehow managing to look both professional and rebellious. It's tucked into the pants with military precision, every line clean despite the fact I definitely didn't dress myself.

Over it all, a leather jacket that makes everything else make sense.

It's fitted perfectly—not too tight to restrict movement, not so loose as to be cumbersome. The leather matches the pants in that shifting quality, sometimes seeming solid, sometimes appearing to breathe.

But it's the logo that draws my attention.

Embroidered on the left breast, positioned exactly over where my heart beats with increasing concern, is the Wicked Academy crest. But it's different from what I remember. The symbol seems more complex, layers of meaning I can't quite parse woven into what should be a simple insignia.

When I look at it directly, it's one thing. From peripheral vision, it's something else entirely.

A mirror floats nearby, revealing and confirming the overall presentation.

Everything in this room seems to exist in defiance of gravity.

Books hover at various heights, their pages occasionally fluttering despite no breeze.

A desk suspends itself at perfect working height with no legs to support it.

Even dust motes seem to move with deliberate purpose rather than random brownian motion.

I approach the mirror carefully, half-expecting it to be a portal or a trap rather than a simple reflective surface.

My reflection stops me cold.

My hair is longer—significantly so. What was past my shoulder-length before now falls past my waist in waves that seem to move independently, as if each strand remembers being flame and occasionally forgets it's just hair now.

The silver color is more pronounced, catching light that doesn't exist to create highlights that shouldn't be possible.

My skin is pale. Not vampire-pale like Atticus, but the particular pallor of someone who's been drained nearly dry and is only slowly recovering. The veins at my wrists and throat are visible through translucent skin, painting blue roadmaps of where life struggles to flow properly.

"What the hell happened?"

My voice echoes strangely in the room, as if the space is both smaller and larger than it appears. The sound bounces off surfaces that might not exist, returns from distances that definitely don't fit within four walls.

I move to the door, needing to understand where I am, why I'm alone, what happened between collapse and waking.

The handle turns easily—too easily, like it was waiting for me to try.

The door opens, and my eyes widen further.

The space beyond defies every law of architecture I understand.

It's a maze of suspended corridors that float in vast emptiness, connected by bridges that might be solid or might be suggestion. Rooms like mine drift at various heights and orientations—some right-side up, some inverted, some perpendicular to any reasonable definition of floor.

And threading through it all, unmistakable despite the impossibility, is a library.

Massive doesn't begin to describe it. The shelves stretch up and up and up, disappearing into shadows that might be ceiling or might be infinity.

Books float between sections, reorganizing themselves according to logic I can't follow.

Occasionally, one opens itself, pages fluttering as if being read by invisible scholars before closing with satisfied snaps.

The color scheme is deliberate—purple and red bleeding into each other like bruises healing or wounds opening. The purple is deep, royal, carrying weight of authority earned through centuries. The red is vital, fresh, speaking of life and death and the thin line between.

Smells assault my senses in waves. Old paper and fresh ink. Copper and lightning. Something floral that might be roses or might be the particular sweetness of decay. Each breath brings new combinations that shouldn't work together but somehow do.

The lighting is alive.

Not metaphorically— literally . Flames dance along walls that shouldn't be flammable, casting shadows that move independently of their sources. The illumination is always just enough to see by but never enough to see everything, creating pools of mystery that shift when observed directly.

I slowly close the door, back pressed against wood that feels too warm to be a dead tree.

"Okay," I tell myself, trying to organize thoughts that keep scattering like startled birds. "Okay, think."

I'm separated from everyone. That's bad…no shit, Gwenievere.

I'm in uniform, which suggests I've been officially processed into Year Three. That's... neutral?

I'm slightly blood-starved based on the queasiness rolling through my stomach and the way my fangs ache with hunger. That's definitely bad.

And I'm in some kind of floating library maze that shouldn't exist but clearly does. That's...I don't even know what that is.

Maybe Year Three isn't about learning from the Academy in the traditional sense.

The thought arrives with the particular clarity of desperate rationalization, but it feels true. This could be about discovering the hidden secrets that death left behind, about bringing the Academy back together from whatever shattered it into this impossible configuration.

"Gwenievere?"

The voice in my head makes me jump, hand going to my chest where my heart races with relief rather than fear.

"Mortimer?"

His mental voice carries its usual scholarly composure, but there's something underneath—relief matching my own, mixed with concern that makes my chest tight.

"Thank the ancient flames you're conscious. We've been trying to reach you for hours."

Hours. I've been unconscious for hours, while who knows what happened to the others.

"What happened? Where is everyone?"

There's a pause, the kind that suggests he's organizing information into digestible portions rather than overwhelming me with everything at once.

"The Academy collapsed. Not physically—dimensionally. When you lost consciousness, it triggered something. Or perhaps your unconsciousness was triggered by it. The causality is unclear."

I lean against the door, needing its dubious stability while processing.

"Collapsed how?"

"Into this."

His mental gesture somehow encompasses the floating maze beyond my door.

"A labyrinth of memory and possibility. Every room that ever existed in the Academy now exists simultaneously, connected by paths that follow emotional rather than physical logic."

The explanation makes too much sense for something so impossible.

"And everyone else?"

"Scattered. Like you, we each woke in individual rooms. I've been able to establish mental contact with the others, but physical reunification has proven...challenging."

Challenging. Academic understatement for 'impossible without help.'

"What do we do?"

Another pause, this one weighted with hesitation that makes my stomach drop.

"I can manifest physically in your space. The distance between our rooms is simultaneously infinite and nothing—the paradox of dimensional collapse. But manifestation would require..."

The silence leaves me wondering of all the possibilities, but it seems when it comes to these trials, there’s one common dominator that shows up again and again.

"Bond initiation," I finish, understanding immediately.

We're the only two of our group who aren't formally bonded.

Everyone else carries my mark in some form—neck, chest, wrist. Zeke is our guide, which may also be deemed as some sort of connection, but Mortimer has remained separate, scholarly distance maintained despite growing closeness and obvious circumstances.

"I'm not worried about that," I tell him, surprised to find it's true.

His hesitation grows rather than diminishes.

"It seems as though the bonds have been placed upon you, versus giving you the privilege of forming them yourself."

The observation stings because it's accurate.

Each bond formed through circumstance rather than pure choice—Cassius during our first trial, Atticus through blood exchange, Nikolai through magical accident. Would I have chosen them without external pressure? Probably. But the choice was never purely mine.

"True," I acknowledge, "but if I were truly against it, I could have said no."

Even through extremity, even with survival at stake, I could have refused. The bonds might have formed through circumstance, but I chose to maintain them. To nurture them. To want them even when wanting became complicated.