Page 15 of Magical Mirage (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #6)

I followed close behind his little paws as my sandals nearly ghosted over the stone floor. The hush of the corridor swallowed our steps like the Academy itself wanted to keep us quiet.

My dad didn’t look back, not once. But his pace was steady and deliberate, almost like he was trying to reach somewhere before the walls changed their mind.

“Dad,” I called softly, not loud enough to echo. “Why didn’t Grandma Elira tell me?”

He didn’t answer at first. My dad just turned down a narrow hall I didn’t use often and slowed enough for me to walk beside him.

“She’s a woman full of secrets,” he said finally. “It started as a bad habit… turned into a way of life.”

I stared at him. “That doesn’t make sense. She knew this thing had returned. She saw it in the sky like the rest of us. How could she…”

“She was trying to protect you.”

He stopped for a panting session.

“She always has,” he continued. “But your grandma has her own rules. Her own understanding of time and memory. If she could bury something to keep it from blooming, she did.”

I frowned. “What if she buried the wrong thing?”

He gave a humorless laugh. “Then we dig it up.”

He turned another corner, one I knew didn’t always exist. That was when it hit me… I knew exactly where he was taking me.

The Academy rearranged itself sometimes, when it felt particularly moody or unsettled. This corridor was narrow and sloped slightly downward, carved from older stone than the rest of the wing. The sconces didn’t glow as brightly here, and I felt the hush settle deeper into my chest.

“You’re not taking me where I think you’re taking me,” I said.

His jaw twitched. “I am.”

“But I’ve only been there once,” I whispered, my voice sounding too small for the hall. “When the Flame Ward cracked and the mirror shattered.”

I’d read of dragons, alliances, and adversaries.

What if he picked up a journal of the secret I held so tight?

“Yes,” he said, turning again. “But the Academy let you in.”

A chill snaked up my spine as I fell into step behind him again.

I remembered the place. I remembered the heat behind the stone walls, the way the air seemed to buzz against my skin like something alive had been stitched into the floor. The chamber that shouldn’t exist beneath the Academy, beneath even the foundation stones.

It wasn’t just forbidden.

It was forgotten.

Or it should have been.

My dad’s focus was razor-sharp. The hallway narrowed again, this time sloping sharply, and the walls curved inward like the Academy wanted us to think twice.

“This place remembers,” I said under my breath.

He glanced back. “It does.”

“And it doesn’t like liars.”

He nodded grimly. “Which is why I’m telling the truth now.”

“But why does grandma not?”

We reached a dead end. Or what should’ve been one. Plain stone wall. No carvings. No light. Only an old sconce with a melted candle long past use.

My dad reached out and touched the stone just beneath the sconce with his paw. It was a different way to get inside than the one I used.

I watched as nothing happened, but then he whispered something too softly for me to hear.

And the wall breathed .

It didn’t vanish. It inhaled . The stones receded into themselves like a sinkhole to reveal a narrow stairwell that curved downward. Black as pitch and lined with veins of glowing orange rock pulsing like coals created an eerie invitation.

I hadn’t seen this entrance before.

“Dad,” I said, my voice shaking a little, “what are we going to find down there?”

He didn’t look at me.

“Answers,” he said. “And maybe the beginning of what we need to end.”

My heart dropped as we stepped into the dark.

The stairwell was steep, too steep for safety, and the walls grew warmer with every step. The scent of ash filled the air, mixed with something sweeter.

The glow from the stone walls provided just enough light to see, but not enough to feel safe. This was not a place meant for comfort.

“When I was here last, it felt like the Academy was holding its breath.”

“Because it was.”

We reached the bottom of the stairs, and he pressed his paw to another seam in the wall with no spell or whisper, just touch.

The door slid open with a sound like a stone grinding wheel, and there it was.

I remembered it. The long room was shaped like a gourd, with a high arched ceiling. The floor had circular grooves, like molten paths long cooled. But this time, something was different.

A brazier had been lit.

It sat low to the ground, and the flame burned silver .

I stepped forward slowly. The silver flame didn’t crackle. It hissed, low and sharp, like breath through a slit throat. A language I couldn’t quite hear.

My dad didn’t look surprised.

I turned to him. “This wasn’t here before.”

“No,” he said. “Probably not.”

My voice was barely audible. “What does it mean?”

He stared into the flame for a long time.

“I don’t know.”

The room shivered, as if the whole Academy had just realized we’d opened a door that couldn’t be closed.

The room was quieter than I remembered, maybe more subdued. Perhaps the stone remembered my steps, my breath, and the way my hands had trembled when I first entered this corridor, which felt like lifetimes ago.

Everything had been different then. My magic, my fear, my ability... My understanding of this place. I didn’t know I belonged.

We moved without speaking. My dad followed close behind me, his paws patient and precise. He wasn’t reacting to the heat in the walls or the occasional shimmer that passed through the air. If he noticed the magic, he didn’t show it.

But the doors didn’t resist him.

Now, as I stepped closer, the runes glimmered and the room recognized me.

But when Frank crossed behind me…

Nothing happened.

I turned slightly. “It let you in.”

He shrugged, expression unreadable. “I was never forbidden.”

The room was mostly unchanged. Shelves that weren’t visible from the entrance stretched into shallow alcoves along the outer walls.

They held things the Academy had buried in shadow and secrecy.

And one shelf, long since dusted by my own hands, held the journals I’d found.

The ones with the sketches, worries, and dreams. The ones that had shown me the truth.

The dragons.

Or whatever thread of magic had once tethered them here, protected, hidden. Forgotten by design.

I paused halfway into the room, my breath caught between memory and dread.

I’d locked these discoveries deep in my chest, and not even Keegan knew the full truth of what I’d read.

And yet here was my dad, wandering further in, paws skimming the same shelf I’d touched. He wasn’t even looking at the journals.

That should’ve reassured me, but it didn’t.

“I didn’t know you knew about this place,” I said, voice soft.

“I wasn’t sure it still existed. The Academy has a habit of getting rid of things it no longer wants people to recall,” he answered. “I only remembered it from when I was young. Before the sealing.”

“I was here a couple months ago,” I confessed. I moved closer to the shelf where the dragon records rested, still tucked behind half-decayed manuals and binding scrolls no one had dared translate. My fingers hovered over them protectively, but I didn’t touch them. Not with him here.

My dad crouched low near the back wall where the stone met a corner seam. His eyes weren’t on the books.

He was studying the floor.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he ran his paw along the base of the wall until he brushed a small, flat stone no larger than my palm. It had no markings or glow. It was an ordinary stone, except it was set at a slightly different angle than the rest.

He pressed it.

There was a click, and the stones lowered into the ground.

I knelt and took one step closer.

Inside were scrolls.

They were wound tight and bound with a shimmering thread made of something that wasn’t quite fiber. They hadn’t just been hidden, but preserved.

My dad reached in with his paw and rolled one out with reverence.

I swallowed. “What are those?”

He didn’t answer. The thread that held it closed shimmered silver-blue in the low light.

He didn’t open it.

He just stood, watching it as if the act of having it out in the open was enough.

“Dad,” I said again, more sharply this time, “what’s in those scrolls?”

My dad still didn’t say a word, but he moved back to the compartment and pulled out another, and finally, a third. He nudged them all side by side with his nose, his breath steady.

My heart beat louder now, matching the sound of distant stone shifting above us. Maybe it was just the Academy shifting in its sleep.

Or maybe it had noticed something waking.

“I think,” he said slowly, “it’s time you saw what the Academy was willing to bury even deeper than the curse.”

And before I could stop him, before I could speak another word, he reached out and broke the seal on the first scroll with his teeth.