Chapter 17: The Honest Prefect

The heavy oak door of Head Archmage Valerius’s office clicked shut behind Killian, cutting off the silent, book-lined room and the weight of that final warning. The corridor outside felt cavernous and cold. Lysander was already ten paces ahead, his student robes billowing as he stalked toward the spiral staircase without a backward glance. His footsteps were sharp and angry against the stone. He didn’t look back. He just disappeared down the stairwell, leaving only the fading echo of his exit.

Killian stood still for a moment. He let the cool air of the hallway wash over him. It didn’t help. Valerius’s last words were still hanging in his mind, clear and inescapable. I will summon Prefect Vayne.

He had maybe an hour. Less, if a proctor was already on the way to find her. The thought was a physical jolt, snapping him out of the stunned stillness that followed the dismissal. He couldn’t just wait in his dorm for the axe to fall. Waiting was what got you caught. Waiting was for people who had real magic to hide behind.

He had to find Althea Vayne first.

The problem was he had no idea where she was. The Scriptorium Wing was a possibility, given her diligent nature, but it was a big campus. He started moving, his own footsteps quick and quiet as he headed for the same staircase Lysander had used. His mind worked, sifting through everything he knew about her. She was a prefect. She took her duty seriously enough to investigate weird magical glitches and file reports. She was probably in a library, or a study hall, or her own assigned carrel. The Scriptorium Wing was the best guess. It was also where her notes had just been stolen from Lysander’s carrel, which might draw her back there out of professional curiosity or anger.

He took the stairs two at a time, his hand skimming the cold central pillar for balance. The Argent Spire felt like a cage whose walls were slowly contracting. Every student he passed in the corridors seemed like a potential witness, every glance a moment of lost time. He kept his head down, walking with a purpose he hoped looked like academic urgency and not like a desperate fraud running out of clock.

The Scriptorium Wing occupied the eastern quadrant of the Spire’s main floor. Its high, arched entryway was flanked by two stone griffins, their wings perpetually half-unfurled in a silent roar. The air here always smelled of old parchment, ink, and the faint ozone tang of preservation spells. Killian passed under the arch, feeling the usual prickle across his skin as he moved through the main ward. It didn’t react, of course. It never did.

The wing was a maze of towering bookshelves, private study carrels tucked into alcoves, and long communal tables where students hunched over massive tomes. The silence was profound, broken only by the soft scratch of quills and the occasional rustle of a page. Killian slowed his pace, trying not to look like he was searching. He walked along the main aisle, his eyes scanning the occupied carrels and tables.

He didn’t see her.

A knot of panic began to tighten in his gut. He circled back toward the section housing recent academy administrative records and student logs. If she was checking on something related to her missing report, that’s where she’d be.

And then he saw her.

Althea Vayne was at a standing desk near a window that looked out over the academy’s central courtyard. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the dust motes dancing around her. She wasn’t reading. She was writing in a small, leather-bound notebook, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her prefect’s badge gleamed on her lapel. She looked exactly as she had in the Herbalia Annex: competent, focused, and utterly serious.

Killian’s mouth went dry. This was it. No plan, just words. He had to get her to see this his way, or at least see Lysander as the bigger problem. He walked toward her, each step feeling heavier than the last.

She didn’t look up until he was standing right beside the desk. Her quill paused. She glanced at him, and recognition flickered in her eyes immediately, followed by a guarded wariness. She closed her notebook with a soft snap.

“Student Thorne.” Her voice was quiet, respecting the library’s hush, but it wasn’t friendly.

“Prefect Vayne.” Killian kept his own voice low. “I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

“Concerning?” She didn’t move from the desk, making it clear this was her territory.

“Concerning the investigation you conducted. The one about the localized enchantment failures.”

Her expression closed off completely. Her eyes narrowed just slightly. “That matter is under review.”

“It’s more than under review,” Killian said, leaning in slightly. “Head Archmage Valerius is about to summon you to his office to testify about it.”

That got a reaction. A faint tightening around her eyes, a quick intake of breath that she suppressed. She hadn’t been informed yet. Good.

“Why would he do that?” she asked, though her tone suggested she was already piecing it together.

“Because someone filed a formal complaint,” Killian said. He kept his gaze steady on hers, willing her to listen. “Against Lysander Thorne-Kaelin. For corruptly withholding your security report to use as blackmail.”

Althea’s lips pressed into a thin line. She looked away for a second, out the window, then back at him. “Blackmail? Against whom?”

“Against me.”

The silence between them stretched for several heartbeats. The only sound was the distant scratch of another student’s quill three aisles over.

“I see,” Althea said finally. Her voice was flat. “And why are you telling me this?”

“Because when Valerius asks you what was in that report, you’re going to tell him the truth,” Killian said. He forced himself to keep talking before she could shut him down. “And part of that truth is that Lysander had your notes for over a week and didn’t report a potential security breach to anyone except me, when he tried to cut a deal.”

He watched her face carefully. He saw no surprise there about Lysander having the notes. She had given them to him herself for that discreet review. But the mention of a deal made her frown deepen.

“What kind of deal?”

“He wanted me to work for him,” Killian said, keeping it vague but damning. “To use whatever… anomaly… you documented to bypass secured areas or sabotage other students. In exchange for keeping your report buried.”

Althea absorbed this. She picked up her closed notebook and tapped it lightly against the palm of her other hand. “That is a serious accusation.”

“It’s what happened,” Killian said. He decided to lay another card on the table, a partial truth that might buy him credibility. “I refused him. I told him if he reported me using your evidence, I’d tell Valerius that he sat on a security threat for personal gain. That turned it into a stalemate.”

“So you admit,” Althea said slowly, “that my report contained evidence of your involvement in those enchantment failures.”

There it was. The direct question he couldn’t dodge here.

“I admit your report linked me to them,” Killian said carefully. “I don’t know why or how those things happened near me. Maybe I’m just unlucky.” It sounded weak even to him.

Althea gave him a look that said she found that explanation deeply insufficient.

Killian pressed on, shifting the focus back to where he needed it. “The point is, Lysander took your legitimate security work and tried to turn it into a private weapon. He didn’t care about fixing the problem you found. He just wanted to own it.” He paused, trying to gauge her reaction. She was listening intently now, her earlier wariness replaced by a cold, analytical focus. “When I refused his deal, he must have gotten desperate. Someone filed that complaint against him this morning.”

“You think he filed it himself?” Althea asked sharply.

“No,” Killian said quickly, realizing that line of thought could lead back to Vesper if she dug too deep. “I think someone else found out what he was doing and used it against him.”

“And who might that be?”

“I don’t know,” Killian lied smoothly. “But whoever it was also broke into his Scriptorium carrel last night and stole your physical notes. They’re gone.”

That piece of news clearly startled her. Her professional composure slipped for just an instant. Her eyes widened. “Stolen? From a secured carrel?”

“Proctor Len confirmed forced entry. The notes are missing. So now Valerius has a complaint, missing evidence, and two students pointing fingers at each other.” Killian took a half-step closer, lowering his voice further until it was almost a whisper. “He’s bringing you in to break the tie. To tell him what was actually in those notes.”

Althea studied him for a long moment. Her gaze was piercing, as if she were trying to read past his words and into the messy reality underneath. “What is it you want from me, Thorne?”

This was the moment. He had to phrase this perfectly. Too much pressure would backfire. Too little would leave him exposed.

“I want you to tell Head Archmage Valerius the truth,” Killian said, emphasizing each word. “The whole truth. That you investigated and wrote a report detailing strange magical failures that seemed connected to my presence. That you gave your notes to Student Thorne-Kaelin for a second opinion because you trusted his position on the student council. And that he then withheld that report from proper academy channels for…” He trailed off, letting her fill in the blank with whatever motive seemed most plausible to her – negligence, ambition, corruption.

Althea didn’t fill it in. She just watched him, her expression unreadable.

Killian pushed forward, making his appeal. “If you do that, you expose Lysander for misusing his authority and failing in his duty. You validate the complaint against him. The focus stays on his misconduct. On the fact that he knew about a potential security issue and chose not to report it because he saw a personal advantage.”

“And what about the content of my report?” Althea asked, her voice still quiet but now edged with something harder. “The part about you? About repeated, proximity-based disruptions to basic academy enchantments? Do you expect me to omit that?”

“No,” Killian said quickly, shaking his head. He couldn’t ask her to lie outright. That would be suicide. “I expect you to include it. It’s part of the truth. But in context. As the security concern that Lysander chose to exploit instead of address.”

He was walking a razor’s edge. He needed her to present his nullity not as his catastrophic secret, but as Lysander’s convenient tool. A subtle shift, but maybe enough to change how Valerius saw the pieces.

Althea looked down at her notebook, running a thumb over its leather cover. She seemed to be weighing something internally. When she looked up again, her decision was made. Her posture straightened, resuming its full prefect bearing.

“I will testify,” she said, her tone formal now, the tone of someone stating official policy. “I will confirm that I authored an investigative report concerning anomalous enchantment failures linked temporally and spatially to your movements, Student Thorne. I will confirm that I provided a copy of my notes to Student Thorne-Kaelin for consultative review one week ago. I will confirm that I received no follow-up communication from him regarding its submission through official channels, nor any indication he had acted upon its findings.”

It sounded good. It sounded exactly like what he needed. A wave of shaky relief started to rise in Killian’s chest.

Then she continued.

“I will also describe, in precise detail, the nature and pattern of those failures as I documented them.” Her eyes locked onto his, and there was no mercy in them, only duty. “The deactivated silence ward in Herbalia after physical contact. The flickering lumen-orbs in the west corridor when you passed within three feet. The stalled cleaning charm on the third-floor landing. The consistent correlation is too strong to dismiss as coincidence or ‘bad luck.’ My report concluded that your presence exerts an atypical, suppressive effect on low-level ambient enchantments.”

The shaky relief evaporated, leaving cold dread behind.

“Prefect Vayne,” Killian started, but she held up a hand, cutting him off.

“I understand what you are attempting,” she said, and for the first time, he heard a sliver of something almost like sympathy in her voice, buried under layers of rigid principle. “You wish to frame this as an issue of Thorne-Kaelin’s corruption rather than your own… condition. And from an administrative standpoint, his failure is real and actionable. But I will not lie under oath before the Head Archmage. I will not soften my findings or obscure their disturbing implication simply because it suits your narrative.”

She took a breath, her gaze unwavering. “My duty is to the academy and its security. My testimony will be complete and factual. It will establish that Thorne-Kaelin neglected his duty regarding a verified security concern. It will also establish that you, Killian Thorne, are at the center of that concern.” She paused, letting the full weight of her words settle between them in the silent library air. “Whether Head Archmage Valerius chooses to interpret that as your victimization by Lysander or as evidence of your own malfeasance will be his determination. Not mine.”