Page 96 of Magical Moonbeam

I could do this, not without pain and not without fear, but with focus and fire.

When we left the forge and entered the Academy, the walls felt calmer. The stone didn’t feel so charged.

Things were clearer, like everything had been polished under a storm. Even the sconces lining the stone walls flickered in a quieter rhythm, their glow more watchful than warning.

My thoughts were still tucked behind fire, and I was afraid that if I let my guard slip, they'd spill again, but that new awareness followed me like a second pulse.

The sprites hadn’t burned me, but they could have. And I realized, maybe for the first time, that this wasn’t just about learning magic. This wasn’t about finding a place in theAcademy or understanding the wards. This was survival. And not just mine.

I moved through the quiet like someone walking the wrong way through a dream. Everything looked familiar, but something had shifted underneath.

The Academy was awake in a way it hadn’t been, and I wasn’t sure it was only because of me.

Near the stairs to the third-floor observatory, I paused. I didn’t hear anything. No voices. No flicker of magic behind a cracked door. Just silence, deep and pressing.

I turned.

No one.

But the sense of being watched didn’t fade.

I picked up my pace, letting instinct guide me, not to the common rooms or my office, but toward one of the older wings.

The stones here were uneven, the magic woven into the mortar older and thicker. This was where the Academy kept its bones, or so I imagined.

Halfway down the corridor, I stopped.

A door stood ajar.

The lantern near it had gone out, leaving the threshold shrouded in gloom. I approached, slow and steady. I didn’t call out. Something told me not to.

I pushed it open with the edge of my hand.

The room beyond was empty, or it looked that way.

Dust motes spun lazily through the low light. Tables and shelves lined the walls, most of which were covered in sheeting.A study, perhaps, or a forgotten archive. But something about it felt wrong.

I stepped inside.

The moment I crossed the threshold, the air changed.

Cooler. Denser. Like I’d just entered another layer of time.

My fingertips brushed the edge of a nearby desk. The wood groaned softly. A single candle had been left on the far table, melted almost to the base. Wax had spilled onto the floor, as if it had been knocked over.

Someone had been here.

Recently.

And then I saw it.

A torn page rested in the center of the desk with no book around it.

I approached carefully, my breath caught in my chest.

The page was nearly charred, the edges curled, and only a few lines remained legible:

“…the Moonbeam’s path is not a straight gate, but a spiraled one… only those who remember and forget in equal measure may pass whole…”