Sylas didn't scream.
That would've given the notebook exactly what it wanted.
Instead, he calmly picked it up off the floor, flipped it shut, and placed it in the bottom drawer of his desk.
Then he locked the drawer.
Then he stacked three textbooks, a kettle, and his last will and testament on top of it.
Because obviously, that would stop a possibly sentient relic from possessing him in his sleep.
"That's how you deal with cursed objects," he muttered. "You bury the problem under bureaucracy."
He glanced at the window, half-expecting the cube to float by like some magical drone.
Thankfully, the night remained cube-free.
Unfortunately, his peace lasted all of ten minutes before someone knocked on his door—again.
"Sylas," came a familiar voice.
He opened the door just enough to squint through. "Felix. Tell me you didn't come here to lecture me about magical ethics."
Felix held up a small pouch. "Actually, I brought pastries."
Sylas blinked. "I... might be in love with you."
"I'm ignoring that."
"Please don't."
They sat by the tiny desk, splitting sugar-dusted rolls and sipping stolen tea. For a moment, things almost felt normal. No curses. No haunted notes. No glowing artifacts of doom.
Almost.
Until Felix said, "Did the cube speak to you?"
Sylas paused mid-bite.
"No."
Felix narrowed his eyes.
"…It wrote to me."
Felix nearly choked on his tea. "Excuse me?"
"It left me a message. In my own damn notebook. Just one line."
"What did it say?"
Sylas wiped sugar from his lips. "She knows you don't belong."
Felix went pale. "That's... not ideal."
"You think?"
"Who's 'she'?"
"No clue," Sylas said. "But I've decided to pretend it was about Vivienne. You know, the scary one with the death glare and five emotional support daggers."
Felix leaned forward, serious now. "This could mean the cube contains sentient memory traces. If it recognized you as an anomaly, it might mean it holds a fragment from someone who knew the real Sylas."
Sylas blinked.
"Okay. Wait. That's... actually terrifying."
"Or useful."
"Why is it never just one of those?"
The next morning, Sylas headed to Professor Veran's study, grumbling the whole way. Because nothing said 'you're doomed' like a man in all black being forced into a one-on-one lecture about arcane runes.
He knocked.
The door opened by itself. Because of course it did.
Inside, Professor Veran stood by a swirling projection of magical sigils, pointing at one that looked suspiciously like a chicken foot doing jazz hands.
"Mr. Vermund," she said without turning, "join me."
Sylas stepped forward cautiously. "Before I do, any chance you'll tell me if this lesson ends with possession or dismemberment?"
"Neither. If we're lucky."
"Awesome."
She finally turned, sharp eyes studying him. "The cube responded to you. We need to understand why."
"Maybe it was lonely."
She ignored that. "You'll begin memory access training."
"...Is that like lucid dreaming?"
"It's like diving into your own mind with a loaded crossbow and hoping the thing you find doesn't shoot first."
"Great," Sylas muttered. "Another Tuesday."
Veran stepped aside, revealing a small glass vial glowing faintly blue. "Drink this. It will assist in stabilizing your mind during projection."
"Stabilizing my mind," he repeated. "Are we just going to skip over how insulting that sounded?"
Veran tilted her head. "Do you want to survive the training?"
Sylas took the vial. "I'll drink it. But only because I'm emotionally vulnerable and easily peer-pressured by scary women."
He swallowed the liquid.
The world immediately blurred—and then he was falling.
Falling inward.
Into something cold and ancient and humming with power.
And at the very center of it, waiting in silence... was the cube.
Not glowing. Not speaking.
Just watching.