Chapter 23

Vane's office was smaller than I expected.

Wood paneling. Bookshelves crammed with volumes that looked actually read, not just decorative. A desk covered in papers, organized chaos that suggested someone who worked too hard and slept too little. Family photos on the windowsill. A wife. Two kids. Normal life details that made him more human and somehow made everything worse.

Cross stood by the door. Vane sat behind his desk. I stood in front of it, feeling like I was waiting for a verdict.

"That was quite a performance," Vane said. His voice was tired. Not angry, which surprised me. Just exhausted. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I told the truth."

"You made a spectacle. In front of families. Faculty. Students who will now spend the summer whispering about hidden doors and secret Signs." He rubbed his temples. "The questions this will generate. The attention it will draw."

"Good. Maybe someone will actually answer them."

Cross spoke from behind me. "Eli, you need to understand the position you've put yourself in."

"I understand fine. I refused to declare for a Sign that doesn't fit me. That shouldn't be a crime."

"It's not about crime. It's about..." She paused, choosing words. "Patterns. Expectations. The way things are done."

"The way things are done is broken." I turned to face her. "Students disappear and nobody asks questions. Blackwood gets blamed and nobody looks deeper. There are seven Signs but everyone pretends there are only four. The way things are done is a lie."

Silence. I felt Cross's walls, impenetrable as always. Felt Vane's fear and exhaustion, still raw from the reading I'd pushed through during the handshake.

"What do you want, Eli?" Vane asked quietly. "What outcome are you hoping for here?"

The question caught me off guard. I'd expected threats. Demands. Not this tired, almost genuine inquiry.

"I want to know the truth. About the Signs. About the disappearances. About whatever the Accord is and why it's been running for longer than any of us have been alive."

Vane flinched at the word. Accord. I'd felt him recognize it during the reading, a shape in his mind that he tried not to look at directly.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. You don't know everything, but you know enough. You know students have been taken. You know there's a structure behind it, something old, something powerful. And you know that when you tried to push back, someone warned you to stop."

His face went pale. I'd hit something deep.

"How do you—" He stopped himself. Looked at Cross. "What has she been teaching him?"

"Nothing that would explain this." Cross's voice was careful, measured. "Eli's abilities are... unusual. We've discussed that."

"Unusual enough to—" Vane stopped again. I could feel him putting pieces together. The handshake. The way I'd held it too long. The reading that shouldn't have been possible.

"You read me," he said. Not a question. "During the ceremony. That's what that was."

I didn't deny it.

"That's a violation. Of every ethical standard we teach. Of every boundary—"

"The people who took those students don't care about ethical standards. The people running the Accord don't care about boundaries." I kept my voice steady. "I'm playing by the rules they set. Not the rules you pretend exist."

Vane stared at me. I felt something shift in him. Not anger anymore. Something more complicated. Recognition, maybe. The look of someone seeing a version of themselves they'd tried to forget.

"You remind me of myself," he said finally. "Twenty years ago. Before I learned better."

"Before you gave up, you mean."

The words were harsh. I watched them land. Watched him absorb the blow.

"I didn't give up. I chose to protect what I could protect." His voice cracked slightly. "Do you have any idea how many students pass through this school each year? How many of them go on to good lives because I kept the institution running? Because I made sure the visible parts worked even when I couldn't control the hidden ones?"

"And the ones who disappeared? The ones who got drained? What about them?"

"I couldn't save them." The admission came out raw. "I tried. In the beginning. And I learned that trying made things worse. Not just for me. For everyone. The warning wasn't just a threat. It was a demonstration. After I pushed back, three more students vanished in a month. Students I'd been trying to protect. The message was clear."

I felt the truth of it. His guilt. His rationalization. The way he'd built a careful structure of justification around choices he couldn't undo.

"So you stopped."

"So I stopped. And the disappearances went back to their normal rate. One or two a year instead of ten. Terrible, but survivable. Containable." He looked at me with those exhausted eyes. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm asking you to understand. The world you're trying to fight is bigger than one school. Older than any of us. I tried to be a hero once. It didn't work. So I settled for being useful."

Cross walked me back to my dorm.

We didn't speak for most of the way. The grounds were quiet, most students still at the post-ceremony reception. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the paths.

"You took a significant risk today," she said finally. "The reading. The public refusal. Any of it could have gone badly."

"I know."

"And you did it anyway."

"Someone had to."

She stopped walking. Turned to face me. In the fading light, her expression was unreadable.

"I've been teaching you control. Boundaries. How to use your gift without being consumed by it." Her voice was quiet. "Today you threw all of that away."

"Your rules were designed to keep me contained. I'm not interested in being contained anymore."

"My rules were designed to keep you safe."

"Safe from what? From becoming a threat to whoever's running things? From getting strong enough to actually fight back?" I met her eyes. "You know what's happening, Professor. You've known from the beginning. And you've been managing me ever since."

Her walls didn't waver. Not a crack, not a flicker. Whatever she felt, she kept it locked away.

"You're making assumptions based on incomplete information."

"Then give me complete information. Tell me what the Accord is. Tell me who's really behind the disappearances. Tell me why there are seven Signs but we only learn about four."

Silence. The space between us felt vast.

"I can't do that," she said finally.

"Can't or won't?"

"Both." Something flickered in her expression. Almost like regret. "There are constraints you don't understand. Obligations that precede your arrival here. Things I'm bound by that have nothing to do with what I might want."

"That sounds like an excuse."

"It sounds like the truth. Which isn't always the same as an answer." She started walking again. "Your abilities are evolving faster than anyone anticipated. That's going to attract attention. Be careful which attention you court."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's advice. Whether you take it is up to you."

We reached my dorm. She didn't follow me inside. Just stood at the entrance, watching as I climbed the steps.

"Eli," she called when I reached the door. "For what it's worth, I'm not your enemy. I'm also not your friend. I'm something more complicated. Someday you might understand that."

I went inside without answering. The door closed between us.

Dao and Sasha were waiting in my room.

"Well?" Dao was practically vibrating. "What happened? What did they say? Are you expelled?"

"Not expelled." I sat down heavily on my bed. "Just warned. Threatened, kind of. Vane told me I reminded him of himself before he gave up."

"That's not a threat. That's sad." Sasha had her notebook out. "What did you get from the reading?"

I closed my eyes. Let the impressions surface. Everything I'd felt when I'd pushed through Vane's walls.

"He's not the villain. He's a pawn who knows he's a pawn and hates himself for accepting it. He tried to fight back once, early on. Someone threatened him. Not just words. Three students disappeared in a month after he pushed. A demonstration."

"Jesus," Dao muttered.

"The Accord. He knows the word. Knows it's real. But he doesn't know the details. Just the shape of it. Something old. Families, money, agreements between powers. It's been running for generations."

"So it's not one person," Sasha said. "It's a structure."

"Exactly. You can't fight it by exposing one bad actor because there isn't one bad actor. It's a system. Everyone plays their part. Most of them don't even know the full picture."

Sasha was writing furiously. "What about Cross?"

"Walls like steel. I couldn't get anything. But she said something interesting. That she's bound by constraints that precede my arrival. Obligations that have nothing to do with what she might want."

"So she might not be a true believer. Might just be... trapped."

"Or she might be playing a longer game we can't see." I opened my eyes. "I don't trust her. But I don't think she's entirely against us either. She's something in between."

Dao paced the room. "So where does that leave us? We know the Accord exists. We know it's old and powerful and has been doing this for generations. We know Vane's compromised and Cross is complicated. What do we actually do with that?"

"We keep gathering information. We watch. We wait." Sasha closed her notebook. "And we survive until we're strong enough to fight back."

"That's Thaddeus's strategy. The long game."

"No. Thaddeus's strategy is to become part of the system and reform it from within. That doesn't work. The system absorbs reformers." Sasha looked at me. "Our strategy is to stay outside the system. Build our own understanding. Find allies who aren't compromised. And when the moment comes, be ready to act."

"What moment?"

"I don't know yet. But there will be one. Systems like this, they seem permanent until they're not. They seem invincible until someone finds the crack." She almost smiled. "We found out more today than we've learned all year. That's not nothing."

She was right. It wasn't a victory. But it was something.

That night, I finally called Shelby.

It was late in Ohio. Almost midnight. But she answered on the second ring, like she'd been waiting.

"Eli?"

"Hey." My voice sounded strange to my own ears. "I know it's late. I'm sorry. I should have called months ago."

Silence on the line. I could hear her breathing. Could imagine her sitting up in bed, processing the fact that I'd finally reached out.

"Yeah," she said. "You should have."

"I know. I don't have a good excuse. Just a lot of bad ones."

More silence. Then: "Are you okay?"

The question hit harder than I expected. Was I okay? I'd just read a headmaster's deepest fears, publicly refused to declare for a Sign, learned that a shadowy conspiracy had been operating for generations, and been warned by a mentor who might or might not be my enemy.

"Not really," I said. "But I'm getting better at not being okay, if that makes sense."

"It doesn't. But I'll take it." A pause. "This school you're at. It's different, isn't it? Not just academically. Something else."

"Yeah. It's different."

"And you can't tell me about it."

"I can't tell you most of it. Not because I don't want to. Because it would put you in danger. Because knowing things about this world paints a target on your back."

She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer.

"That's what your mom used to say. When I'd ask why she checked the mirrors so much. Why she always seemed scared. She'd say knowing things was dangerous."

My heart stopped. "You remember that?"

"I was eight. But yeah. I remember her telling my mom that once. That some knowledge wasn't worth having." Another pause. "I didn't understand it then. I'm not sure I understand it now. But I'm starting to think your family has always been mixed up in something, Eli. Long before this school."

I didn't know what to say. Shelby had been there. Had seen pieces of my life that I barely remembered. Had been paying attention when I'd thought she was just a kid like me.

"When I come home for summer," I said finally. "I want to tell you everything I can. Whatever's safe to share. You deserve that."

"I deserve to know what happened to my best friend."

"I know. And I'm sorry I've been so bad at this. At being your friend."

"You've been terrible at it." But there was warmth underneath the words. "I've missed you, Eli. The real you. Not the one who sends one-word texts and pretends everything's fine."

"I've missed you too. More than I knew how to say."

We talked for another hour. Not about magic or the Accord or the things that would put her in danger. Just about life. Her senior year. College applications. The drama at her job. Normal things. Human things. The kind of conversation I'd almost forgotten how to have.

By the time we hung up, something had loosened in my chest. A knot I'd been carrying all year without realizing it.

I still had to lie to her about most of my life. That wouldn't change. But at least now she knew the lies existed. Knew they were protecting her, not excluding her.

It wasn't enough. But it was a start.

I lay awake thinking about everything.

The Accord. Seven Signs. Vane's exhausted compliance. Cross's impossible walls. The hidden doors on the floor above us, waiting for someone to finally open them.

Sasha was right. We'd learned more today than we had all year. We knew the shape of the enemy now. Not a villain to defeat but a system to dismantle. Not a conspiracy hiding in the shadows but a structure so old and embedded that it had become invisible, the way water becomes invisible to fish.

That was both terrifying and strangely hopeful. Because systems could be changed. Structures could be dismantled. It would take time and strategy and probably more courage than I had. But it wasn't impossible.

I thought about Vane's warning. How he'd tried to be a hero and failed. How he'd settled for being useful instead.

I didn't want to end up like him. Tired and compromised and hating myself for the choices I'd made. But I also didn't want to be naive. The people who'd built this system had been doing it for generations. They were smarter than me, more powerful than me, more connected than me.

But they were afraid of something. Vane's fear had a direction to it. When I'd mentioned the Accord, when I'd asked about the hidden Signs, his fear had spiked. Not because of me. Because of something else. Something that even the people running the system were worried about.

The Wellspring. The Sign that officially didn't exist.

Whatever it was, it mattered. The Accord had worked hard to hide it, to pretend it wasn't real. That kind of effort meant it was dangerous to them.

Which meant it might be useful to us.

Tomorrow the year would officially end. I'd go home to Millbrook, spend the summer with Dad, pretend to be normal. And when September came, I'd return to Mudwick with new questions and a clearer sense of what I was fighting.

The war hadn't started yet. But I could feel it coming. The sides were forming, even if most people didn't know it. And when the moment came, when Sasha's crack in the system finally appeared, I'd be ready.

I fell asleep with the hidden doors still humming in my awareness. Patient. Waiting.

Like they knew their time was coming.