Location: Slytherin Dormitories, Sublevel 3
Time: September 27, 3:11 AM
⸻
Elias Greengrass hated the taste of the lake water in the air.
The Slytherin dormitories were lavish, sure — emerald-lit and filled with ancient furniture that still whispered back if you sat too long — but they always smelled like damp stone and ghost breath. Still, he preferred it to being upstairs with the rest of the noise.
He hadn't meant to wake up. The wards in his bed flared on their own. Someone had delivered something inside the dorm — unseen, untraceable, but precise.
A letter.
It was sitting on the desk by the fireplace. Not delivered by owl. No wax seal. Just thick, impossibly aged parchment with his name written in ink that shimmered only when tilted.
Elias Greengrass.
His pulse picked up.
He reached for it with cautious fingers — not wand-drawn, but ready to react. His parents had trained him in every ward trap the Circle used.
This letter had none of them.
That made it worse.
⸻
Inside the envelope was a single sheet.
No greeting. No signature. No warmth.
Just this:
⸻
"The girl in your year is not what she seems.
Straithe is not a name. It is a scar."
Do not speak to her.
Do not protect her.
Do not follow her into the hall of echoing light.
You are of the Circle.
She is the unmaking."
⸻
Elias blinked.
There were no official Circle symbols on the parchment. But that didn't matter. He recognized the phrasing. Recognized the cadence.
He'd read his grandfather's hidden journals. Studied the forbidden materials tucked into Greengrass vaults sealed by blood. He knew exactly what this was.
A Circle commandment — given through the old method, invisible to the Ministry.
He turned the letter over.
No ink.
But the firelight flickered strangely against the parchment.
He held it closer—and a faint sigil shimmered into view across the back:
A wand, cracked at the base.
Encircled by thorns.
Etched not in ink, but in burned skin of the parchment itself.
⸻
"Wandbound," he whispered.
The word felt wrong in his mouth. Heavy. Like a spell you shouldn't cast.
He looked toward the window. The lake was dark, but for a moment, the ripples moved against the current — like something was rising from beneath.
He folded the letter and tucked it into the lining of his trunk, away from even his dormmates' prying eyes.
Then, against the instructions, he made a decision.
He would find Lyra Straithe.
He would speak to her.
And he would decide for himself what the Circle was so afraid of.