Chapter 18: The Second Ward

Althea Vayne’s words hung in the air between them, final and sharp as a blade. She would tell the truth. The whole truth. Killian stood there for another second, searching her face for any crack in that resolve. There was none. Her expression was set, the look of someone who had already filed her testimony in her mind and sealed it.

He managed a stiff nod. “Understood, Prefect.”

There was nothing else to say. He turned and walked away from the standing desk, his boots making no sound on the thick Scriptorium rug. The sunlight from the window felt too bright, too exposing. He kept his shoulders straight until he passed under the stone archway and out of the wing, back into the cooler, darker main corridor.

Then the panic hit him like a physical blow to the gut.

Less than an hour. Maybe much less. Valerius would call her to his office. She would walk in, stand before that massive desk, and recite her findings like a clinical report. The deactivated silence ward. The flickering lumen-orbs. The stalled cleaning charm. Proximity-based. Physical contact. Each fact was a nail. Lysander’s misconduct would be noted, sure, but it would be a footnote to the main event: the undeniable pattern pointing directly at Killian Thorne.

He started walking faster, then broke into a run. The sound of his footsteps echoed off the stone walls, drawing brief, annoyed glances from students he passed. He didn’t care. He needed to find Elian.

Elian would be in their dorm, or in one of the smaller reference libraries he favored. Killian took the stairs to the residential levels two and three at a time, his lungs burning. He shoved open the door to their room.

Empty.

The bed was neatly made. Books were stacked with geometric precision on the desk. The air smelled of ink and old paper. No Elian.

Killian cursed under his breath, a gutter-word that felt more real than any incantation he’d ever faked. He leaned against the closed door, forcing himself to think. The Argent Spire was huge. Wandering the halls blindly would waste the precious minutes he had left.

He pushed off from the door and went back into the corridor. He headed for the nearest common study nook, a small alcove with a window seat that Elian sometimes used when he wanted quiet away from their room. As he rounded the corner, he almost collided with someone.

“Watch it!” a sharp voice snapped.

It was Elian, carrying a stack of three heavy grimoires. He juggled them precariously, his glasses slipping down his nose.

“Elian.” Killian grabbed his arm, steadying him and the books.

Elian blinked up at him, adjusting his glasses with his free hand. He took in Killian’s expression—the tightness around his mouth, the wild look in his eyes—and his own face immediately paled. “What happened?”

“We have a problem. A big one.” Killian glanced down the hall. It was empty for now. “Not here.”

He steered Elian not toward their room, but to a disused storage closet he’d noted weeks ago during his initial mapping. It was tucked behind a faded tapestry depicting some forgotten magical battle. He pulled the tapestry aside, found the simple latch, and pushed Elian inside before following and closing the door behind them.

The closet was narrow and dark, smelling of dust and old linens. A sliver of light came from under the door.

“Killian, what is this?” Elian whispered, his voice tight with alarm.

“Valerius is summoning Althea Vayne. Now. Maybe already.” Killian’s words came out in a rushed whisper. “I just spoke to her. She’s going to testify. She’ll confirm she gave the report to Lysander and that he sat on it.”

“That’s… that could work in our favor,” Elian said slowly, trying to follow the logic. “It discredits Lysander completely.”

“She’s also going to give Valerius every detail of her investigation.” Killian’s voice was flat. “The silence ward I killed by touching it. The orbs that dimmed when I walked by. The cleaning charm that froze. She has it all documented, Elian. Times, locations, witness statements. She’s going to lay it out like a map with my name at the center.”

In the dim light, he saw Elian’s throat work as he swallowed. The scholar’s mind was already racing ahead, parsing the implications. “A pattern of localized suppression. Caused by proximity to you.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s… worse than just being a fraud.” Elian’s whisper was horrified. “A fraud is someone pretending to have magic they don’t have. This is something else. This is you actively negating magic that exists. That’s not an administrative error anymore. That’s a… a phenomenon. A threat.”

“I know what it is,” Killian snapped, then lowered his voice again. “The point is, she’s walking into Valerius’s office to explain it all in perfect, prefect detail. Once he hears it from her, the question stops being ‘did Lysander misbehave’ and starts being ‘what is Killian Thorne and what do we do with him?’”

Elian set the stack of books down on a dusty shelf with a soft thump. He leaned against the opposite wall, his face a pale smudge in the gloom. “We can’t stop her from testifying.”

“No.”

“We can’t silence her.”

“Obviously not.”

“Then…” Elian trailed off, thinking furiously. Killian could almost hear the gears turning in his head, scanning through magical theory, academy protocol, any possible loophole.

Killian spoke first, voicing the desperate idea that had been forming since he left Althea at her desk. “What if we make her testimony look wrong?”

Elian looked at him blankly.

“Not wrong about Lysander,” Killian clarified quickly. “Wrong about me. About the cause of the disruptions.”

“How? The evidence is documented.”

“Evidence can be misinterpreted.” Killian leaned closer, his voice dropping even further. “Her whole conclusion rests on a pattern: weird magic stuff happens when I’m around. Therefore, I cause it.”

“You do cause it,” Elian said bluntly.

“But what if we could prove that correlation isn’t causation? What if we could show that these ‘anomalies’ are just random glitches in the Spire’s older enchantments, and I just happened to be nearby when they failed?”

Elian shook his head slowly. “That’s a statistical argument. You’d need to demonstrate multiple similar failures occurring without your presence to establish a random failure rate. We don’t have that data. She does. Her data shows a perfect correlation.”

“Then we break the correlation,” Killian said.

A beat of silence passed in the dusty closet.

“What are you suggesting?” Elian asked, though his tone suggested he already knew.

“We create a new incident,” Killian said, laying it out as clearly as he could while his heart hammered against his ribs. “Another ward failure, or an orb flicker, or something. But we make it happen while Althea is with Valerius. Or right before she goes in. And we make sure I’m nowhere near it.”

Understanding dawned on Elian’s face, followed immediately by fresh dread.

“You want to stage a magical failure,” Elian whispered.

“Yes.”

“To cast doubt on her findings.”

“To show that these things can happen on their own,” Killian insisted.

“That’s… that’s active interference,” Elian said, his voice rising slightly before he caught himself.

Killian remembered their conversation after the potion exam. ‘Active interference would be seen as magical sabotage.’ He pushed past it. “It’s not sabotage if we don’t target anything important. We pick something small. A minor ward. Something that failing wouldn’t hurt anyone. We just… make it stop working for a minute.” ‘Dissection by the Arcane Inquisition.’ The memory was cold. But Althea walking into that office felt colder.

Elian stared at him. His mind seemed to be fighting itself. The part that craved order and rules recoiled. The part that was already complicit in this entire charade calculated odds. He rubbed his temples. “Even if we could, how? Your effect is proximity-based. You have to be close to something to disrupt it. If you’re nowhere near it, it won’t fail.”

“So I get close,” Killian said. “I trigger it. Then I leave. You or someone else reports the failure after I’m gone. By the time anyone investigates, I’ll be somewhere else with witnesses, creating an alibi.”

“That only works if the failure is temporary,” Elian countered, falling into analysis despite his fear. “Your disruptions so far have been brief. The silence ward reactivated after you moved away. The orbs relit. If you trigger something and leave, it might fix itself before anyone notices.” He paused. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you trigger something with a more… physical component,” Elian said slowly, thinking it through aloud. “Your effect seems stronger with direct contact. Touching that beam deactivated the silence ward completely for several seconds. If you were to touch a ward anchor point—the physical object that channels the enchantment—the disruption might last longer. Long enough for someone to find it malfunctioning while you’re verifiably elsewhere.”

Killian nodded rapidly. This was a plan. A terrible, dangerous plan, but a plan. “Okay. Good. Where? What ward?”

Elian closed his eyes, visualizing the Spire’s layout. “It has to be minor. Non-critical. Something whose failure would be noticed but not cause an emergency.” He opened his eyes. “The climate-regulation wards on the lower levels. They keep certain storage areas dry and cool. If one failed, it would just get a bit damp or warm. A proctor doing rounds might notice it, or a student fetching supplies.” He looked at Killian. “The anchor points are usually small, engraved copper plates set into the wall at waist height.”

“Can you get me down there without being seen?” Killian asked.

Elian shook his head immediately. “No. I have Remedial Principles in twenty minutes with Morvath. If I skip it, he’ll note my absence. It will look suspicious, especially after today’s events.” He bit his lip. “You’ll have to go alone. But you need an alibi for when the failure is discovered.” He thought for another moment. “The alchemy labs are on the opposite side of the Spire from the lower storage areas. There’s a mandatory safety lecture for all first-years in Lab Four this afternoon. It starts in…” He checked a small pocket watch he kept on a chain. “…thirty-five minutes. Attendance is taken via sign-in sheet. If you’re there, signed in, surrounded by fifty other students for an hour, you couldn’t possibly be downstairs breaking a ward.”

Killian did the math in his head. Time was slipping away like sand through his fingers. He had to get downstairs, find a ward, touch it, get back up to the alchemy lab, and sign in—all before Althea was summoned or finished her testimony. And he had to hope someone found the broken ward and reported it while she was still with Valerius.

“It’s thin,” he said aloud.

“It’s all we have,” Elian replied, his voice grim. He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out a folded piece of parchment and a stub of charcoal pencil. He smoothed it against one of the grimoires on the shelf and began sketching quickly. “Here is our dorm level.” He drew a rough square with lines for corridors. “Main staircase here. Go down three full flights. That’s below the classroom levels. The corridor there leads to archival storage and old supply rooms.” He marked an ‘X.’ “The third door on the left is a linen storage closet for the east wing dorms. It has a climate ward to prevent mildew. The anchor plate is set into the wall just inside the doorframe, about here.” He tapped the spot on his sketch.

Killian committed it to memory.

“Touch it with your bare hand,” Elian instructed, his tone shifting into a clinical lecture despite their circumstances. “Make full contact for at least five seconds. Based on previous observations, that should induce a complete failure lasting several minutes, maybe longer.” He looked up, meeting Killian’s eyes in the dim light. His own were wide with fear behind his glasses. “Then you leave immediately. Do not run unless you are sure you are alone. Walk quickly but normally back up to the main level and go straight to Lab Four in the Alchemical Studies Wing. Sign the attendance sheet yourself—don't let anyone sign for you or it could be traced later if they ask questions.” He folded the map and pressed it into Killian's hand.

Killian took it, his fingers closing around the parchment.

Elian wasn't finished. “There's another problem,” he said quietly.

Killian waited.

Elian let out a slow breath.“What if it doesn't work? What if your touch doesn't disrupt this particular type of ward? Or what if someone finds it too quickly and fixes it before Althea even gets to Valerius? Or what if nobody finds it at all?” He shook his head.“We're gambling on far too many variables going exactly our way.”

Killian understood.He felt each of those possibilities like stones in his stomach.But he saw only one path forward.He couldn't just wait.He had to move.“Then we lose.I get exposed.Either way,sitting here means I definitely lose.Trying this means I might not.” He turned toward the closet door.“I have to go.”

Elian caught his sleeve.“Wait.Killian.” He hesitated.“Be careful.” The words were inadequate,but they were all he had left.

Killian nodded once.He slipped out from behind the tapestry,pausing for only half a second to ensure no one was watching.He smoothed down his student robe and started walking toward the main staircase,trying to look like someone simply heading for class early.His heart hammered against his ribs,a frantic drumbeat counting down seconds.

The Argent Spire felt different now.Every corner held potential eyes.Every sound—the distant murmur of voices,the faint hum of embedded lumen-orbs—seemed amplified.He descended quickly,taking each flight of stairs with controlled urgency.The air grew cooler as he went down.The walls became plainer stone,dampened slightly by underground chill.

He reached the lower level.The corridor stretched before him,dimly lit by widely spaced orbs.He counted doors.One.Two.He stopped at the third door on the left.It was unmarked,a simple oak door with an iron handle.He listened.No sounds came from within.

He glanced both ways down the corridor.Empty.His fingers closed around the cold iron handle.He turned it slowly,pushing inward.The door opened without resistance.A puff of air escaped,cool and smelling faintly of lavender and clean cloth.Linen storage.He stepped inside,pulling the door almost closed behind him but leaving enough of a gap so he wouldn't be locked in if something went wrong.

The room was small,shelves stacked high with folded sheets and blankets.A single lumen-orb glowed softly from its sconce near the ceiling.The air felt uniformly cool,dry,and still.The climate ward was working perfectly.He scanned the wall near where Elian had indicated.He saw nothing but smooth stone.He moved closer,running his hand along it.His fingertips brushed over a slight irregularity.A thin line.Just inside,the stone recessed slightly,and there,a small copper plate was set flush with its surface.It was about six inches across,smooth and cool,intricately engraved with tiny runic circles.It looked more like art than machinery.Killian stared at it.This little piece of metal maintained an entire room's environment.It seemed so small to hold so much power.Magical power.His kind of power—the void kind—was about to touch it.He took one more breath,filling his lungs with that dry,laven-der-scented air.He pressed his right palm flat against the center of copper plate.It was cold.Nothing happened for two full seconds.He counted them.His heartbeats thudded against his ribs.On three,a subtle vibration traveled up through palm.On four,the constant background hum he hadn't even consciously registered—the ambient sound of magic at work—cut out abruptly.On five,the air around him changed.The cool,dry stillness vanished.Instead,the air grew instantly heavier,damp.The scent of lavender seemed to intensify as if actual moisture were leaching into fabrics around him.He could feel difference against skin.He lifted hand.The copper plate looked unchanged.But atmosphere in room had shifted palpably.The enchantment was gone.He waited ten more seconds,watching listening.Nothing reactivated.The failure seemed complete.Now get out.He turned,pushed door open wider,and stepped back into corridor.He pulled door shut behind him without latching completely,making sure gap remained so eventual discoverer would notice state inside immediately.He started walking away down corridor toward staircase.As moved,felt strange prickling sensation spread across skin where touched plate.It faded after few steps.He didn't look back.He reached staircase began climbing.First flight.Second.He passed another student going down,a third-year carrying large empty crate probably heading for same storage area.Killian nodded briefly kept climbing without breaking stride.His mind raced.Would student notice?Would they care?Maybe they'd think room always felt like that.Would they report?Too many variables.Elian's warning echoed.He pushed thought aside.He had get lab.Fourth flight.Fifth.Main level.He emerged into busier hallway filled with students milling between classes.He blended into flow,following signs toward Alchemical Studies Wing.His watch showed eighteen minutes until safety lecture started.Lab Four was large circular chamber dominated by central ventilation hoods rows polished stone worktables.Sign-in sheet rested on lectern near entrance.Several students already milled around chatting.Killian walked up,picked up quill dipped inkwell.Scrawled name neatly middle column: K Thorne .He put quill down stepped away taking seat near back room where could watch entrance.The air smelled sharply chemical residues cleaning solutions.His hand still felt slightly tingly where touched copper plate.He flexed fingers under table.Time dragged.Each minute stretched thin as wire.More students filtered in signing sheet.Instructor Tallis,a severe woman with hair tied tight bun,bustled in carrying stack scrolls.She went lectern checked sheet gave satisfied nod.Good attendance.She began lecture basic safety protocols handling volatile reagents.Killian heard none words.He watched doorway.Waiting for messenger maybe proctor bursting interrupt Waiting for sign plan worked or failed.Twenty minutes into lecture nothing happened.Twenty five.Instructor Tallis demonstrated proper way extinguish magical flame using suppression powder white cloud billowing demonstration table.Killian's leg jiggled under table uncontrollably tension gathering like storm inside chest.Had failure been found?Had Althea already given testimony?Had she left office?Was Valerius now pondering pattern deciding fate?Thirty minutes.Forty.Fifty five.Lecture winding down.Instructor Tallis dismissed them reminding them next week practical session involving caustic salts.Killian stood mechanically shuffled out with crowd.Eyes scanned corridor outside lab looking anything unusual.No commotion.No proctors running.No whispers about broken wards.Nothing.Just normal end class chatter students dispersing.His plan had failed.Nobody found ward or nobody cared.Althea's testimony stood uncontested.He felt hollow weight settle stomach walking numbly back toward dorm.When entered room found Elian already there sitting desk staring blankly wall turned when door opened.His expression asked question without words.Killian shook head once.Elian's shoulders slumped.They sat silence for long minute.“Maybe…” Elian started then stopped.There no maybe.They both knew.Killian walked window looked out over academy grounds.Twilight beginning paint sky purples oranges.Lights windows across courtyard winking on one one.Magic everywhere holding place together except where wasn't.Suddenly sound rushed footsteps outside corridor.A voice raised not shouting but urgent.Two students hurried past their door talking fast.“...said whole room felt like swamp…”“...proctor called maintenance but they can't find break in matrix…”Killian froze.Elian stood slowly.They looked each other.The failure had been found.It just took hour.Killian felt wild surge hope.But then immediate doubt crushed.How did timing work?When exactly reported?Where Althea now?Had she already testified?Was this too late?“We need know where Vayne is,” Killian said low voice.Elian nodded already moving.“I'll go Scriptorium see if she there maybe overhear.” He left quickly leaving door open.Killian paced room unable stay still.Five minutes later Elian returned face unreadable.“She not Scriptorium.I asked discreetly couple students.They saw her summoned Head Archmage office about forty five minutes ago.They haven't seen her since.”Killian stopped pacing.So she testified already while they sat lab listening safety protocols.Their staged failure discovered hour later.Did reports cross paths?Did Valerius hear about linen closet after she left?Would connect?Would matter?It all depended timing perception.Now impossible know.They played card they had no way seeing result.Everything hinged on whether Valerius viewed new incident as proof Althea's findings flawed or just another data point confirming pattern.The uncertainty was worse than knowing worst.He could only wait for summons that might never come or might come any second.Dusk deepened outside.Lumen-orbs hallway outside their door flickered momentarily then steadied.Killian's eyes snapped toward them.It nothing probably just normal fluctuation.But paranoia now reflex.Every glitch every hiccup felt like accusation.Footsteps approached door slow measured.Both boys tensed.A knock sounded three firm raps.Not Len's heavy fist.Not Valerius's imperious command.But official nonetheless.Elian glanced at Killian then called,“Enter.”Door opened revealed Proctor Len bulk filling frame.His expression usual granite mask.“Student Thorne.”Killian's heart stopped dead chest.“Yes Proctor.”Len's gaze swept over both them.“Head Archmage requires your presence.His office.Now.”