Sylas had a list.
A mental one, updated almost daily, titled: Things I Will Never Do Again Unless Absolutely Forced By Plot.
As of today, a new item had climbed to number one.
#1: Make Eye Contact With an Ancient Artifact.
He sat in the infirmary, sipping a suspiciously minty potion, while Professor Veran and Headmaster Ilyana argued just outside the door.
Yes, argued. Quietly. Academically. With lots of long pauses that probably involved telepathic screaming.
"Why do these things keep happening to me?" Sylas muttered, staring at the ceiling. "I didn't ask to be Fate's chew toy."
"You did touch the cube with your soul signature," came a calm voice beside him.
Sylas blinked. "I did what now?"
Felix looked up from the notebook he'd been scribbling in. "You triggered a response. That kind of artifact doesn't activate without resonance. Which means—"
"—I'm special. Yay. Put me in the museum next to the glowing death orb."
Felix's brow furrowed. "No, it means you're either linked to the object's past or its intended future."
Sylas groaned. "Why can't it ever be neither?"
Before Felix could answer, the door opened and Headmaster Ilyana entered.
She was calm. Too calm.
The kind of calm that meant either everything was fine or someone was about to be expelled via lightning bolt.
Sylas sat straighter. "I didn't do anything."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, this time."
"Mr. Vermund," she said, tone cool and precise, "it appears the artifact responded to you specifically. That places you under direct observation by the Arcanum Wing. Effective immediately."
"Wait—hold up—observation? Like a science project?"
"More like... magical probation."
Sylas stared. "You're giving me a parole officer for touching a rock."
Felix made a helpful noise. "Technically, it's a pre-sentient relic housing ancient consciousness fragments—"
"—that blinked at me!" Sylas snapped. "Can we all stop pretending that's normal?"
Ilyana didn't blink. "You'll attend mandatory study sessions with Professor Veran and submit to mana scans twice weekly. You're also barred from returning to the lower archives without supervision."
Sylas flopped back onto the pillow. "I'm going to die. Definitely. This is how I go. Not in battle. Not in glory. Death by homework."
Felix shrugged. "At least you'll have documentation."
Sylas groaned again. "Why are you like this."
Later that evening, back in his dorm, Sylas stared at the ceiling again—because sleep was for people not being watched by ancient artifacts and magic professors.
The cube hadn't glowed again. But something had definitely changed.
There was a pressure in his thoughts now. Not painful, but present. Like a whisper trying to form words he couldn't quite hear.
He sat up and glanced at his desk.
His notebook was open.
He didn't remember opening it.
Worse—there was something written inside.
A sentence. In ink he didn't own. In a handwriting that definitely wasn't his.
"She knows you don't belong."
Sylas froze.
Then scribbled underneath it:
"Cool. Who's 'she'?"
No response.
He waited.
Then, with a sigh, tossed the notebook across the room and buried himself under the covers.
"Great," he muttered. "Now I've got a haunted diary too. Can't wait to put that on my resume."