Chapter 7: The Price of Silence

The dormitory tower slept beneath a cold, indifferent moon. Its stone corridors echoed with distant snores and the occasional spectral prank, but on the top floor—behind a locked oak door—one room pulsed with hidden light.

Inside, Angel knelt on bare floorboards.A perfect circle of salt and ash ringed her like a noose; thirteen candles marked the cardinal points, their flames steady as statues, heedless of drafts. Overhead, moon-silver spilled through warped glass and painted her cloak in shifting shards of white.

She had spent the day drafting every glyph, every syllable of the Aetherveil—the shroud spell older than most kingdoms. Now the parchment lay open before her, ink shimmering with reluctant power.

Angel drew a slow breath, the air tasting of smoke and anticipation.

“Let the veil descend,” she whispered, voice scarcely more than a vibration in the stillness.“Let the scent be cloaked. Let the aura be sealed.”

With every phrase the room tightened, as though invisible threads cinched closer around her ribs. Sparks—tiny, harmless motes—floated up from the sigils, hanging in suspension before winking out.

From her satchel she produced the anchor: a dog-eared photograph, corners soft, colors sun-bleached. In it, her brother stood in a summer field, mid-laugh, hair ruffled by wind. She could almost hear him joking that she’d never beat him at cloud-racing—almost smell the grass and lemonade.

Almost.

She pressed the photo to her heart. Her hands shook, not from fear, but from what came next.

“Let this bind the spell,” she said, words snagging on grief.“Let this part of me be buried.”

Angel leaned forward and laid the picture in the nearest candle’s blue core.

Flame caught.

At once the circle blazed white. Power surged through her veins—ice and wildfire at once. The photograph blackened, curling inward until only embers remained, drifting upward like dying fireflies.

And with each crumble of paper, a memory fell away.

She felt it leave: the sound of her brother’s laugh, the exact shade of his eyes at dawn, the nickname he used when she skinned her knee. Details slipped through her fingers like sand, vanishing into the tightening weave of the Aetherveil.

Tears blurred the room. She clutched her chest as though she could cage the memories that were already fading.

When the light finally dimmed, the dorm was silent again—yet different. The air around Angel had cooled, wrapped in a thin, invisible mist. Her scent—human, uncertain—was gone, replaced by nothing at all. Her aura read like smudged ink, indistinct, unremarkable. She was, for the first time since arriving at the Academy, truly hidden.

Angel sagged onto her heels, lungs burning. The spell settled inside her like a second heartbeat: steady, irrevocable.

“I’m sorry, Eli,” she rasped into the hush—using the name she could still remember, even if the sound of his laughter was already slipping beyond reach.

An ash flake drifted down. She caught it between trembling fingers. It dissolved against her skin, leaving only cold.

Outside, a lone raven cried and fluttered off toward the western spires where Lioren—the fae who would not stop watching—dreamed his own opaque dreams. He would seek her scent tomorrow and find only shadows.

The cost had been paid.

Angel wiped her cheeks, extinguished the candles with a word, and let the darkness fold over her like a cloak.

Tonight, at least, she was safe.

But safety, she knew, was never free.

Dawn bled pale gold through high lancet windows as students filed into the Illusion Hall, robes swishing, voices bright with sleep-coaxed energy. Angel arrived last, shoulder grazing the doors a breath before they sealed with a resonant thunk.

She had not closed her eyes all night.Every limb felt water-logged, her thoughts lagging half a beat behind the world, yet the Aetherveil thrummed inside her like a spun-glass cocoon—weightless, flawless, hiding every tell-tale trace of what she truly was.

Angel slipped into a back-row seat. No heads turned, no curious whispers; the spell was working.

All but one pair of eyes.

Across the tiered chamber, Lioren—silver-haired, impossibly composed—sat draped over his desk as though the carved wood were a throne. The moment Angel crossed the threshold, his gaze flickered—first bright as struck flint, then narrowing, puzzled. He inhaled on reflex, searching for the signature he had followed for days; finding nothing, a faint crease formed between his brows.

'Interesting', his lips shaped without sound.

Angel kept her stare on the blank page of her notebook, pen unmoving.

---

The Lesson Begins

Professor Zephyros swept to the center dais, silver coat billowing like storm clouds.

“Today,” he proclaimed, voice cracking across marble, “we unravel the Veil of Unreality. A careless mind will wander past its tether and never return.” His eyes gleamed. “Volunteers?”

A ripple of nervous laughter skittered through the hall.

Angel’s skull throbbed in time with her pulse. The ritual’s price—memories lost, sleep stolen—gnawed at her edges. She bowed her head, hoping to appear studious and small.

A shadow pooled over her desk.

Lioren had risen without a sound, expression carved from polite curiosity. When Angel finally looked up, she met a gaze the color of moonlit ice.

“You register as emptiness now,” he murmured, voice pitched for her alone. No sniffing, no dramatic theatrics—only those mercurial eyes, flickering as though adjusting to a starless night. “That is… exceedingly rare.”

Angel’s fingers tightened around her pen. “So is good manners among the fae. Try practicing them elsewhere.”

A slow smile curved his mouth, equal parts admiration and warning. “Secrets tend to fester if left un-aired, little witch. Careful they don’t hollow you out.”

He drifted away, returning to his seat—yet Angel felt the echo of his attention like cold breath on nape.

---

Fraying at the Seams

Zephyros dimmed the chandeliers; swaths of living illusion blossomed in the gloom—forests that breathed, oceans inverted against the ceiling, doorways that led to yesterday. Students gasped, delighted.

Angel saw none of it clearly. Her vision tunneled, black spots flowering at the margins. The Aetherveil held, but her body staggered beneath the double weight of magic and exhaustion.

'Hold on. Just until the bell'.

She dug nails into her palm, an anchor against the drifting haze. In the distance she sensed Lioren glance back once more—eyes sparking, assessing—but he made no move.

Candles guttered. Illusions roared.Angel remained upright, a fragile silhouette in the storm of unreality, wondering how many more sacrifices the Academy would demand before it permitted her to breathe.

—To be Continued—