I waited until the tower bells rang midnight.
If Kirevar was rooted in memory magic, I needed to start with the one place the academy never spoke of—the Reflection Vault.
It was where broken enchantments were kept, too unstable to destroy but too dangerous to release. They called it the "graveyard of spells." Most students didn't even know it existed.
I slipped in using an outdated key Serena helped me replicate.
The Vault smelled like ash and static. Inside were rows of sealed glass columns, each one housing a fragment of failed magic. Some whispered. Some pulsed faintly. Some stared back.
I found what I didn't know I was looking for.
A rune shard. Floating in a containment ring. Same shape as the Kirevar glyph—but fractured.
As I reached toward it, my fingertips brushed the containment field. A jolt surged through my body—and then the world tilted.
Suddenly, I wasn't alone in the Vault.
I was standing in a hallway that no longer existed. Marble columns. Crimson banners. The academy, but centuries ago. Students in unfamiliar robes walked past me, unaware.
And in the center, a girl.
She wore my face.
But it wasn't me.
She turned, eyes glowing faintly, and reached for the same rune.
Then everything shattered. The vision collapsed inward, and I fell to my knees on the cold Vault floor, gasping.
The containment ring was still intact.
But my palm bore a faint mark—the Kirevar seal, now embedded beneath my skin.
Not a curse.
Not yet.
But the thread had been breached.