Two weeks of enforced normalcy felt like two years. Niko attended classes with mechanical precision, his mind perpetually elsewhere even as his body went through the motions of spirit energy manipulation drills and combat theory lectures. The lockdown had evolved into something more insidious than restriction—a suffocating atmosphere of false routine where everyone pretended the disappearances weren't still happening, where faculty maintained brittle smiles while students whispered in corners about who might vanish next.
Several more had gone missing since the night in the archives. A third-year named Catherine during evening meditation practice, and a first-year whose name Niko hadn't learned before he became another absence, another empty seat in the dining hall. The faculty response had been predictable: increased surveillance, mandatory buddy systems, earlier curfews. All measures that treated symptoms while the disease metastasized beneath their feet.
Niko sat in the dormitory common room, ostensibly studying barrier construction principles but actually reviewing his mental catalogue of the cold spots he'd detected. Four confirmed locations, each one a tear in reality through which something ancient and hungry was reaching. The pattern suggested coordination, intelligence, purpose—all the things that made this threat exponentially more dangerous than a simple supernatural anomaly.
His communication crystal pulsed once against his palm, a sensation like cold water trickling across skin. He glanced at it casually, not wanting to draw attention from the handful of other students scattered throughout the common room, all of them projecting the same false concentration he was. The crystal's message appeared as ghostly text visible only to him, Professor Morse's precise script hovering in his peripheral vision.
*Third floor study alcove. Twenty minutes. Come alone but bring Miss Okafor. Yes, I'm aware of the contradiction.*
The message dissipated like morning fog, leaving no trace. Niko felt his pulse accelerate despite his efforts to maintain outward calm. Professor Morse reaching out secretly, instructing them to meet in the same location they'd used to plan their archive infiltration—this was either very promising or catastrophically bad. Possibly both.
He waited ten minutes before standing, stretching with deliberate casualness, and wandering toward the dormitory exit as though heading to his room. Once in the corridor, he sent a pulse of spirit energy through his own crystal, a pattern he and Ayesha had developed for covert communication: three short bursts, a pause, two long pulses. The message was simple: *our spot, ten minutes, important*.
The return pulse came almost immediately, a flicker of acknowledgment that felt distinctly amused. Ayesha could probably guess what this was about, and knowing her, she was already moving.
Niko took an indirect route to the third-floor alcove, partly from caution and partly from the need to organize his thoughts. What did Professor Morse want? Had she gotten them expelled after all? Had the senior council discovered their involvement and decided to make an example of them? Or—and this possibility sent equal parts anticipation and dread through his chest—had she found something that changed the equation?
The study alcove occupied a architectural quirk where the academy's original construction met a later addition, creating a small space that the monitoring wards somehow overlooked. Niko had discovered it during his first year while mapping the facility's spirit energy flows, a habit born from his analytical nature and encouraged by instructors who recognized his intuitive affinity for energy pattern recognition.
Professor Morse was already there, which shouldn't have been possible given the timing of her message. She stood by the narrow window overlooking the academy grounds, her silver-streaked hair loose rather than bound in its customary bun, making her look simultaneously younger and more exhausted. A leather satchel rested on the alcove's small table, its contents concealed but radiating a faint spiritual signature that made Niko's shard resonate with recognition.
Old magic. Dangerous magic.
"Professor," Niko greeted cautiously, remaining near the entrance. "Your message was cryptic even by current standards."
"Cryptic is the only safe communication method when the monitoring wards might be compromised," she replied without turning from the window. "Tell me, Niko, when you detected that cold spot in the administrative wing, did you sense anything else? Any suggestion of conscious manipulation from our side of reality?"
The question hit him like cold water. "You think someone inside the academy is involved?"
"I think several things, none of them comforting." Professor Morse finally turned to face him, and in the afternoon light, he could see the toll the past few days had taken. Dark circles shadowed her amber eyes, and her characteristic precision had frayed at the edges. "I think the seal that contained the 1847 entity didn't fail naturally. I think the pattern of disappearances is too organized to be random feeding behavior. And I think the senior council is moving far too slowly for people who should understand the severity of this threat."
Footsteps approached the alcove with Ayesha's distinctive rhythm, quick and light. She entered looking characteristically unbothered by the clandestine nature of the meeting, though Niko had learned to read the subtle tension in her shoulders that belied her casual demeanor. "Professor Morse. This is either the beginning of an amazing mentorship arc or we're about to be arrested. Possibly both?"
"Your optimism is noted, Miss Okafor." The professor's lips twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "Sit, both of you. What I'm about to share is several levels above your clearance and at least three violations of academy protocol on my part. But after considerable reflection and what I'll charitably call research, I've concluded that protocol is going to get more students killed."
They sat at the small table while Professor Morse opened her satchel and began extracting documents. Unlike the aged files from the restricted archive, these were recent—printed within the last few years, judging by the paper quality and formatting. She spread them across the table like tarot cards, each one revealing a fragment of a larger, darker picture.
"Case File 1847-A was not the first incident," she began without preamble. "Nor was it the last. The Devouring Year is simply the most dramatic, the hardest to suppress or explain away. But if you know where to look in the records, if you have access to certain classified databases, you find a pattern stretching back nearly two centuries."
Niko leaned forward, his analytical mind already racing through implications. "Multiple incidents. How many?"
"Seventeen confirmed events exhibiting similar characteristics to our current situation." Professor Morse tapped a chart showing dates and locations scattered across Velia County. "Student disappearances, shadow manifestations, spatial anomalies. Each incident smaller than 1847, each one contained before reaching critical mass. The longest gap between events is seventy-three years. The shortest is fifteen."
"We're at seventy-three years since 1847," Ayesha said quietly, her usual brightness dimmed by comprehension. "This definitely isn't random."
"Precisely. Which suggests we're not dealing with a single entity that was imperfectly sealed, but rather something using the academy as a recurring feeding ground." Professor Morse pulled out another document, this one a hand-drawn diagram of what appeared to be a complex spirit energy configuration. "Every sealing of the entity follows the same pattern. A massive expenditure of lives and power to force it back and repair the dimensional barrier. But if the barrier keeps failing on a predictable cycle, then either our sealing methodology is fundamentally flawed, or..."
"Someone's been deliberately weakening it from the inside," Niko finished, feeling ice crystallize in his veins. "Seventeen incidents over two centuries. That's multiple generations of faculty. Professor, are you suggesting there's an organized conspiracy to feed students to an eldritch entity?"
"I'm suggesting that when I brought these findings to Headmaster Calloway yesterday, he confiscated my research and removed me from the investigation team." The professor's voice remained level, but fury simmered beneath the words. "I'm suggesting that when I pressed for access to the sub-basement seal location, I was denied on grounds of safety protocol that don't exist in any manual I've ever read. I'm suggesting that this institution, which I've served for eight years, is either compromised by something I don't understand or actively complicit in something monstrous."
The alcove fell silent except for the distant sounds of academy life filtering through the window. Niko felt his worldview shifting, pieces of assumed safety and institutional authority crumbling like sand castles before tide. If they couldn't trust the faculty, if the academy itself was corrupted, then every rule they'd been taught, every protocol they'd learned, might be part of the machinery delivering students to slaughter.
"Why are you telling us this?" Ayesha asked, her grey eyes sharp and assessing. "If the administration shut you down, why risk involving students?"
Professor Morse met her gaze steadily. "Because you're already involved, whether I acknowledge it or not. Because Niko's spirit signature is almost certainly tagged by the entity after his scrying attempt. Because Miss Okafor's control precision is exactly what would be needed for delicate investigation work. And because..."
She paused, something vulnerable crossing her features. "I lost my partner because I followed orders from people I trusted, people who claimed to have better intelligence than we did on the ground. I won't make that mistake again. The senior council tells me to stand down while students vanish? I nod, I smile, and then I do what's actually necessary."
"Which is?" Niko prompted.
"Officially? Nothing. I am a model instructor following administration directives to the letter." Professor Morse began returning documents to her satchel, but she moved slowly, deliberately, as though distracted. "Unofficially, I may have accidentally compiled extensive research materials on historical sealing techniques, entity behavior patterns, and sub-basement architectural layouts. Clumsy of me to have left such sensitive materials in my office filing cabinet, third drawer, behind the barrier construction textbooks. The lock is a simple three-layer ward keyed to faculty signatures, but anyone with sufficient precision and a willingness to work slowly could probably bypass it."
The implication hung in the air like smoke. Niko felt a smile tugging at his lips despite the gravity of everything they'd just learned. "That does sound remarkably careless, Professor."
"I've been under considerable stress," she replied, deadpan. "My judgment may be impaired. I might even forget to reset the office wards tonight when I leave at nine o'clock to attend a faculty meeting that will conveniently last at least two hours."
"We understand, Professor," Ayesha said, matching her tone. "You have our word we won't take advantage of such an unfortunate security oversight."
"See that you don't. And if hypothetically someone did access those materials, they would need to be extraordinarily careful. No more consciousness-diffusing scrying attempts that paint targets on your spiritual forehead. No direct confrontation with entities or corrupted faculty. Research only, building a complete picture before taking any action." Professor Morse's amber eyes hardened. "Whatever's happening here has been operating for two centuries. It can afford to be patient. So can we."
She shouldered her satchel and moved toward the alcove exit, then paused. "One more thing. In all seventeen previous incidents, the entity manifested fully only once—in 1847. Every other occurrence was contained at an earlier stage. The fact that we're already at six disappearances in less than a week suggests this cycle is accelerating beyond historical patterns. Which means either someone is actively feeding it more power, or it's found a way to strengthen itself between manifestations. Either possibility is catastrophic."
"Understood," Niko said quietly. "Professor? Thank you. For trusting us."
"Thank me by surviving," she replied. "And by being smarter than I was at your age. Courage without wisdom is just elaborate suicide."
She left them in the alcove with the weight of revelation and responsibility settling over their shoulders like heavy cloaks. Niko looked at Ayesha and found his own tumultuous thoughts reflected in her expression—determination war with fear, curiosity battling caution.
"So," Ayesha said after a long moment. "We're doing this. Actually doing this. Investigating a multi-generational conspiracy to feed students to eldritch entities while simultaneously evading compromised faculty and an intelligence that already wants to devour you specifically."
"Apparently."
"Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about how monumentally dangerous this is."
"Noted and acknowledged." Niko felt something settling in his chest, a crystallization of purpose that pushed back against the doubt that had plagued him since the barrier incident. This was different. This mattered. "Nine o'clock tonight, Professor Morse's office. We get the research materials and find somewhere secure to review them."
"And then?"
"Then we learn everything we can about how to fight something that's been winning for two hundred years," Niko said. "And we find a way to break the pattern."