Chapter 3: The Vault

Kron.

Kron listened to the girl’s explanation with only half an ear.

Not because he was bored. Quite the opposite: watching her—flushed and breathless, rattling off the protective spells as though she had personally installed every one of them—was almost entertaining. But her information was laughably incomplete. Which was understandable, of course. She didn’t know even half of the defensive system currently operating throughout the library. She knew nothing about the false doors on the fifth tier, nothing about the mirror trap in the gallery with its mental verification spell, and certainly nothing about the fact that the runes on the ironwood door changed configuration every six hours. Which meant that whatever she had painstakingly memorized from a three-year-old textbook—or perhaps merely glimpsed while studying in the common hall—was hopelessly outdated and not worth a damn.

He didn’t correct her. Why bother? Let her take pride in her supposed knowledge. It didn’t inconvenience him in the slightest.

When her stream of words finally ran dry, Kron pushed himself away from the wall and headed toward the window, moving with the unhurried grace of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere to go.

“All clear. Stay here, little witch. Don’t leave the room, and don’t touch the charcoal. Let’s see what this so-called ‘Library of Knowledge’ of yours is all about. Abyss! When will you people learn to give things names without all the unnecessary grandeur? And don’t close the window, little one!”

He didn’t turn around, but he could practically feel the girl scowling at his back. She said nothing. Smart. Neither of them needed another pointless argument, and there was, after all, a grain of truth in what Kron had said.

In one swift, fluid movement, he caught hold of the window frame. One casual flick of his tail, and the iron latch snapped cleanly in two with a soft, plaintive chime. Kron slipped outside, held the shutter open for a fraction of a second, and jumped.

The darkness beyond swallowed him without a trace—no sound, no rustle, not even a disturbance in the air. He reached the central library tower within minutes, neither hurrying nor dawdling. Moving through shadows was second nature to him; there was no lock in this world capable of keeping out a High Demon. Especially not one who knew exactly where he was going.

And Kron knew.

He knew the layout of every section better than any living Magister. Centuries ago, he had worked alongside the current head of the Academy—back when Kalleas had still been a young, ambitious Magister who had yet to reach the peak of his power—on the very project that had created the Forbidden Section. They had placed seals. Woven spells into stone. Argued themselves hoarse over precisely which kinds of knowledge should be locked away from the outside world and which should remain accessible. It was then, more out of stubbornness than necessity, though necessity had certainly played its part, that the two of them had created a secret chamber. A chamber so well hidden that only a handful of living mages even knew it existed.

Kron hadn’t thought about it in years. But tonight, while listening to the girl’s halting explanation, he had decided to pay it a visit. First, however, there was the formal part of their bargain to fulfill.

Slipping through the protective wards surrounding the Forbidden Section, he entered the chamber like water flowing through a door that had not been properly shut. Not a single rune flared. Not a single guardian stirred. The centuries-old magic woven by the finest minds of the Academy recognized him—for part of that very magic had once been his own.

The books Miya had requested were easy enough to find. Four heavy leather-bound volumes that smelled of dust and age: Fundamentals of Elemental Flow Transmutation, A Treatise on the Subjugation of Will, Keys to the Gates of Perception, and Compendium of Forbidden Third-Circle Rituals.

Ambitious. Dangerous. And, as it happened, completely useless to a third-year student.

The first volume alone would burn through her mana channels before she made it to the second chapter. The second would break her will and enslave her mind. The book possessed the rudiments of a consciousness of its own. The third would simply drive her insane, while the last would kill her outright.

Kron smirked as he placed the four tomes into a shadow-woven satchel. The girl had asked for them, so the girl would get them. And if she broke her own neck in the process, that would be her problem. Still, to keep her from doing exactly that too quickly, he would place restrictions on the books. A small mark that would prevent the text on their pages from appearing unless she was capable of actually comprehending it.

Before leaving the library, however, he stopped and turned into a side passage, gliding past dusty shelves bearing the warning DANGEROUS ARTIFACTS — NO ENTRY WITHOUT MAGISTERIAL CLEARANCE, until he reached a blank stone wall.

The place where they had sealed away that secret chamber.

There was no door here. No runes. No sign. Only an old, faded tapestry depicting a dragon biting its own tail.

Kron touched the dragon’s eye with the tip of one black claw. The stone beneath the tapestry trembled, rippling like water, then parted as it recognized the one who had been granted access, revealing a narrow chamber carved directly into the thickness of the wall. Inside, on a single shelf of black obsidian, lay perhaps a dozen books.