Revelations and Betrayals

The jubilance from the Test of Magic was still clinging to the corners of Elara’s mind as dusk descended, streaking the sky with ribbons of violet and gold. But it could not dispel the growing shadow that had settled in her chest. Lina rested her head on Elara’s shoulder beside the window, quiet but smiling; Rowan cleaned her wand for perhaps the first time ever. Corin, flushed with leftover excitement, tried to teach Lina how to juggle enchanted apples, though most of the fruit ended up rolling across the floor.

But even in this mundane peace, Elara felt the weight of Ivy Corvus’ fleeting words: Some magics find us when we need them most—but only if we’re honest about what we fear.

That night, well after the others had drifted off, Elara lay awake tracing the sharp promises in the secret note: The key is not what it seems. Beware the silvered glass.

---

In the deepest part of the night, when only the soft gurgle of pipes and the distant hoot of the owl chimed beneath the moon, she slipped from her bed. Just as she donned her cloak, Lina’s gentle voice halted her: “Couldn’t sleep?”

Rowan propped herself up, hair sticking up like a battle standard. “We’re not letting you go alone, Elara. That’s the pact.”

Corin, too—ever the light sleeper—was already climbing out of her sheets, clutching her satchel. “Good thing I refilled the biscuit tin,” she whispered, attempting her best rallying grin.

The four crept down the corridor, tiptoeing through a sleeping castle—as familiar as their old midnight adventures, yet now thick with apprehension. Lina led them through back passages she’d mapped. At the chess-cat tapestry, they paused, heartbeats skipping in unison. “Ready?” Elara whispered.

Rowan nodded. Lina gripped Elara’s hand; Corin produced the note—the one with the key’s warning, though Elara didn’t remember giving it to her. She hesitated, but let the moment pass. Together, they pressed the tabby queen’s paw. The tapestry pulled aside like a curtain, opening onto the spiral stairs down to the South Wing.

Below, the air tingled. Their footsteps stirred centuries of dust and memory. The runes etched in the stone shimmered faint blue beneath their wands’ tips, and the sense of boundaries crossed sent shivers up Elara's spine.

That’s when Rowan held up the ward-mapping lens from her mother’s collection, handed hurriedly before curfew. “It’ll show any traps,” she promised. “If Corin doesn’t step on all the triggers first.”

They reached the forbidden doors—massive, inlaid with twisting runes around panes of silvered glass, the patterns half-hidden beneath centuries of fingerprints. Their reflections, rippling and strange, peered back at them.

Lina produced a sliver of blue quartz wrapped in copper wire, found wedged in an ancient volume days before. “There’s a keyhole here—but it’s not a real lock. You have to… feel it.”

Elara tried first. When she pressed the quartz fragment against the runes, the glass shimmered and a strange chill leapt up her arm, as if the door itself measured her fears. Memories of being outcast, of losing control, of Lina’s screams in the magic circle—all flickered across the glass. Her knees buckled; Rowan grabbed her elbow.

But then Rowan, Lina, and Corin laid hands on the quartz and on her shoulders, and the fear bled away, replaced by a gentle warmth. Together, they whispered, “Let us in—together.”

A riddle shaped itself aloud, the runes lighting up:

"To those who seek that which is sealed, Heart and cause must be revealed. The key of trust, in unity found: Open the way with faith unbound."

Elara swallowed hard, looking to her friends. “We trust each other. That’s our key.”

Hand in hand, they pressed forward. The door dissolved into mists, and they stumbled into the forbidden chamber.

---

The room was vast, circular, and cold as a tomb. The walls curved with mirrored panels veined in spider-silk silver. In the center, perched atop a column of black marble, was the artifact: a flawless disk of glass, incandescent from within—a pool of moonlight made solid. Silver mist swirled beneath its surface, shapes moving, swirling, never quite coalescing.

Inscribed on the plinth were words in the language of the Founders. Lina, eyes wide, breathed, “It’s…the Silvered Glass. The real one. Not just a legend.”

Rowan crept forward. “What does it do?”

A voice rang—echoing, crackling—from the shadows. “It keeps something imprisoned.”

They spun. Standing in the archway: Ivy Corvus, her wild hair burnished by the artifact’s glow. Her expression was stone—fear and sorrow warring in her gaze. But behind her, emerging from the deeper dark, was another figure that sparked ferocious recognition in Elara’s mind: Magnus Crane. But not arrogant and smirking as usual—eyes wide, jaw clenched, wand drawn.

But not at them. At someone else.

A slow, measured step on the stones, and then—their companion fell into the light. Corin.

For a moment, it did not register. Corin, doughy-cheeked and always out of breath, pale in the moonlit glow of the Glass and—smiling.

Not her smile. Not the bashful Corin of biscuit tins and scattered notes, but something sharper: a smile that glittered, dangerous as frost.

Elara’s heart lurched. “Corin…?”

Corin faced her fully and said, softly, “I really am sorry, Elara. All of you.”

Lina’s hand caught her mouth, the horror blooming silent and swift. “What are you…?”

Ivy stepped forward, voice trembling. “She’s not alone. The Warders are fracturing—someone’s feeding information from inside. Corin’s just the messenger.”

Corin’s posture straightened, as if a weight were finally shed. “Do you think you’re the only ones with questions? Or secrets?”

Magnus interjected, staggering a step forward, voice uncharacteristically raw. “She tricked us. She led us here. She wants to open it—”

Corin’s wand was out, steady. “I never wanted any of you hurt. But the Glass—it can save people, too. Undo what’s been done. The Warders keep everyone in the dark, all for the sake of their old pledges. My sister is trapped—because of this artifact.”

The truth dropped, bitter as wormwood: Corin had a sister, lost in a magical accident—the very one hushed up last year. No one was ever told what caused it… Elara remembered now: the whispers, the teachers’ guilt, Ivy’s haunted eyes.

“Our sister,” Ivy said. “She’s mine as well.”

Rowan’s voice was quivering with rage. “You can't— Corin, we could’ve helped you!”

Corin’s face spasmed. “You would’ve stopped me. You don’t understand—no one does.”

The air began to vibrate with power, wild and hungry. The mirrors on the wall flickered—reflections rippling with presences long gone. Corin turned to the Glass, chanting words in the Founder’s tongue—the same ones from the secret society’s vow. The disk glowed brighter, motes swirling inside like an approaching storm.

Magnus darted forward, but invisible force knocked him back. Lina tried a binding spell; it fizzled on impact with a shield Corin threw without looking.

Ivy’s face twisted in anguish. “Corin—please. There are things that can’t be undone. If you break the seal, you’ll let it out—all of it. There’s a reason no one can remember what happened the night your sister disappeared.”

Corin, choking now—anger yielding to desperation—sobbed, “Then I’ll remember for all of you!”

A shockwave pulsed from the Glass. Cracks spiderwebbed along the surface; cold wind whipped around the chamber, carrying eldritch voices, shards of sagas never told.

Elara’s instincts screamed. Heart pounding, she shoved aside her fear, reaching for the thread of power within—wild, unpredictable, but hers. “We have to stop her. Together!”

Rowan and Lina closed ranks, wands at the ready. Ivy and Magnus looked to Elara, trusting her in a way that made her skin burn with terror—and hope.

A roar shook the chamber as Corin finished her chant. Shadows took form in the mirrored walls—entity or entities, their outlines shifting, monstrous and beautiful. The Glass’s seal buckled.

Elara rose her wand. “As friends, as family—let us keep what must be kept!”

A torrent of silver energy spiraled. Elara felt the force of everyone’s hope and pain and faith crash into her spell. For a moment, she glimpsed a face inside the Glass: a girl, limned in moonlight, calling out for help, then flickering away.

Corin shrieked with grief; the spell faltered. For just a second, the cracks mended.

But then—

A darker presence surged, writhing up through the surface. The artifact’s light shattered, fragments spinning in the air.

And, just as Elara’s knees buckled and the others lunged to shield her, the room filled with unnatural cold and a voice—the real antagonist—boomed, “At last, the veil is broken. Now, the Academy will remember.”

The forbidden chamber trembled, mirrors flexing, power building. Elara clutched Rowan’s hand, staring at the dissolving prison—and the horrors slipping through.

---

They were too late.

The Silvered Glass had broken. And something lost to memory had awoken.