The Midnight Pact

The night air was cool and sharp, slipping through the gaps in the dormitory’s ancient windows. Elara sat upright in bed, clutching the note with the warning—The key is not what it seems. Beware the silvered glass—and waiting for the appointed hour. The moon painted shifting pools of silver on the floorboards. Moonrise meant curfew, but moon-high, Rowan had whispered, meant secrets.

At ten strokes past midnight by Lina’s antique hourglass, Elara pulled on her cloak and crept to the door. Rowan was already there, grinning, hair wild. “Lina says she has a map,” Rowan mouthed. “And Corin…” Rowan shrugged, “…will bring snacks. Obviously.”

The hall was muffled, everyone else long abed. Lina waited near the end, her usually tidy curls in a loose plait, an enormous book clutched to her chest. Corin met them just as the chime of a faraway clock faded. She brandished a tin of hazelnut biscuits.

“Ready?” Lina asked. Her voice trembled, though her eyes shone with excitement. “I… think we need to see behind those doors, to know what really happened.”

They slipped like shadows down the stairwells. The castle at midnight was stranger still: paintings asleep and snoring in their frames, stairways frozen in uncanny configurations, lantern-light pooling in odd corners. Rowan led, humming under her breath the tune of an old hexbreaker—just in case.

Corin stopped at a tapestry of cats playing chess. “Here,” she said with a conspiratorial wink. “The back way to the South Wing.” She pressed the paw of the tabby queen; with a faint purr, the tapestry curled aside, revealing a spiraling stair.

The passage beyond was thick with dust and memories. Lina’s borrowed wand led the way, casting gentle green light. At the bottom, an alcove yawned into the labyrinthine service corridors, their walls covered with mosaics faded by time. Elara’s heart pounded. Would they see ghosts? Worse?

She clutched the warning note tighter.

At the corridor’s end, muted voices drifted through a crack in the stone. Elara peeked: a small chamber, lit by a cluster of crystal lamps suspended midair. Shadows moved—four older students in black cloaks with silver linings.

One was Ivy Corvus, unmistakable, with her secretive beauty and mournful gaze. Another, a boy Elara recognized from advanced Spellwork, tall and severe. They were gathered around a sigil carved into the floor, whispering incantations. A book with broken bindings hovered in a beam of pale light.

Rowan was nearly quivering with anticipation. Corin’s biscuit tin shook.

Ivy lifted her wand. “Repeat the vow: until the veil is lifted and truth restored, we serve in secret, warders of the glass.”

The others answered as one. “Until the veil is lifted, and truth restored.”

Lina’s hand covered her mouth. Elara watched, spellbound. Were they seeing a secret society? Warders of the glass—like the note’s warning. Was this what happened to the best students? Initiated in the mystery and set to watch?

The ceremony broke. The older students whispered—

“Did you hear something?”

Rowan pulled them backward, but Elara’s sleeve caught on a protruding stone. There was a spark, a fizzing click—suddenly the floor under their feet shimmered, a web of runes igniting bright blue.

The world tilted. Light flared. A burst of wind flung them back into the passage; a barrier snapped shut behind, soundless but absolute.

Elara gasped, flattened against the wall. The others stared, shocked.

Lina whispered, “I think we just triggered a ward…”

Corin looked sheepish. “I, um, may have stepped on the wrong tile.”

From beyond the barrier, Ivy’s voice—calm but tense: “If anyone’s out there, you’re in danger. This is not the place for first-years. Leave—please.”

Silence. The runes faded.

They waited, hearts pounding, for footsteps that never came. After several breaths, Rowan broke the quiet. “Well. That was dramatic.”

Elara touched the warning note for courage. “We can’t stop now. We’re closer than ever to learning what’s wrong with the locked wing, and what the silvered glass is.”

Lina looked at them all, determination growing on her gentle face. “If we make a pact, we do this together. No more sneaking off alone.”

Corin nodded fervently. “Agreed. Pinky promise, pact by biscuit tin, whatever works!”

They clasped hands, four in a circle under the stone arches. Rowan found the words: “We swear to find the truth beneath Wisteria Hollow, together. No one left behind.”

Four voices, echoing through the empty corridors: “Together.”

As they made their way back through the winding secret passage, Elara felt the warmth of her friends’ hands even as the fear lingered in her bones. Whatever the secret was, it ran deep—but for the first time, she knew she was facing it with people who cared about her, and who maybe saw her as something more than a frightened first-year with wild magic and too many questions.

Above them, through unseen walls, the school creaked and whispered. Shadows shifted with intention. But Elara’s heart brimmed with purpose—a pact literarily, and magically, sealed.

The warning still echoed in her mind: The key is not what it seems. Beware the silvered glass. But now, she wasn’t alone in solving it. And somewhere, beyond wards and whispered oaths, the truth was waiting for them all.