Page 134 of House Ignis

She plucked a chocolate and grinned. "You're the best."

"Anything?" I asked, already bracing for the answer.

"Same, same," she sighed, leaning back. "I'm running through old languages, but none of these symbols match anything in the recorded archives."

"Fuck."

Hours later, we were still hunched over more damned books, halfway through a bag of cookies.

"Surely there's some record in this entire academy," I muttered, tossing a scroll in frustration. "I swear to the gods, I will search this whole place upside down."

Jules's head snapped up, chocolate still in her mouth, her glasses sliding down her nose and her blue eyes wide. "What?"

"The Academy! There has to be a place where the old stuff is kept."

She swallowed and leaned in, whisper-yelling,

"The Academy... there are forbidden catacombs underneath it."

I straightened. "Come again?"

"But they're forbidden, Ava!"

"And why are you only telling me this now?" I hissed back.

She sighed, closing one of the texts with a thud. "Because they've been shut down for centuries. But there are rumors—they say the catacombs hold ancient tomes. Stuff from the gods' era. Things not even the Headmasters are allowed to study."

My heart skipped. Tomes from the gods' era?

"I need to get in there," I whispered, my breath catching as I looked at her pleadingly.

She sighed again, rolling her eyes and packing up the books with reluctant resolve. "Fine. Give me until tomorrow night. I will see what I can dig up about where the entrance is."

I nodded, fire already licking beneath my skin. Maybe this was it. Maybe we were finally going to get answers.

I threw my soaked blazer back on, gave her a quick wave, and headed down the tower steps.

Back toward Asher's silence. Because gods help me—if he looked at me one more time with that unreadable, smug, too-good-for-emotion face, I was going to wipe it off him myself.

With a fireball.

•••

I went straight for the bathrooms in the Ignis training grounds, stripping off my soaked uniform and pulling on my red leggings and matching crop top. My hair went back into its usual braids, tight and crown-like. No distractions.

The rain had finally stopped, leaving the air thick with magic and mist. As I stepped outside, there he was—slamming his fists into a training bag like it had personally offended him.

Shirtless, of course.

His Umbra training shorts clung to his hips, revealing muscular legs and soaked trainers, while shadows curled lazily around him like smoke.

The moment I stepped out, he stopped. Turned. And looked right at me.

Gods. That look—low, intense, unreadable—hit me like a punch to the chest. It took my breath away every single time. And worse? He knew it. He felt it through the bond. I didn't know how to shield yet. Didn't want to, not really. Every damn day, images of the moonlit baths surfaced: the feel of his hands, the whisper of his lips, the way he made me feel. It cracked something inside me, slowly and constantly. And he just stood there like he hadn't shattered me and walked away.

I composed myself, barely, and made my way to the mat.

"Hey," I murmured, stretching.