I'm vaguely aware of Atticus's hand tightening on mine, of voices raised in alarm, of the sensation of falling that goes on far longer than the height of any stairs should allow.
But mostly I'm aware of Professor Eternalis's voice.
It echoes all around—not from her position ahead of us but from everywhere and nowhere. The words bounce off surfaces that shouldn't exist, multiply through dimensions that overlap without touching, carry through time that moves in directions other than forward.
"If Wicked Academy was created by love, who were the real creators of its fruition?"
The question feels important. Essential. The kind of truth that rewrites everything else once understood.
"And why was it tainted in wickedness?"
I want to answer.
The words crowd in my throat, desperate to escape. I know something about this—memories inherited or experienced or glimpsed through waters that shouldn't exist. Gabriel and Iplaying in shadow-meadows. Parents who spoke of creation rather than inheritance.
Elena's face twisted with jealousy that would become betrayal.
But consciousness is failing faster than words can form.
The last thing I'm aware of before everything goes black isn't the falling or the voices or even the weight of exhaustion.
It's the question echoing through dimensions:
Why was it tainted in wickedness?
As if the Academy itself wants to know.
Waiting centuries for someone who might remember the answer.
As though we're not students but keys to locks the Academy has been trying to open since its creation.
Darkness takes me, but it's not the comforting dark of Cassius's shadows or the peaceful dark of sleep.
This is the dark between possibilities, where multiple realities exist before observation collapses them into single truth.
And in that darkness, I dream.
Or remember.
Or both.
The distinction doesn't matter in spaces where time moves sideways and memory can be prophecy if you're looking at it from the right angle.
I dream or remember a time when the Academy was new.
When buildings rose from will rather than construction, when bridges spanned spaces between hearts rather than structures. When two children who would become three through cruelty not yet imagined ran through halls that sang with joy rather than screamed with anguish.
I dream and remember the moment love became loss.
Not gradually but instantly, transformation as complete as severing head from body. One moment, the Academy breathed with life. The next, it gasped with dying. The transition marked by betrayal so fundamental that reality itself had to be rewritten to accommodate it.
I dream and remember Elena's face.
Not twisted with jealousy yet but bright with determination. She's speaking words I can't quite hear, performing ritual I can't quite see, reaching for power that was never meant to be grasped by hands that would use it for vengeance rather than creation.
But the memory dream fractures before revelation.
Like looking at picture through broken glass—I can see pieces but not pattern, fragments but not full image.
