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I turn toward the staircase. For the first time since entering, I understand what's been bothering me. The Silent Archives aren't a library. Not really. Libraries are meant to preserve knowledge so it can be found again. This place feels like it was built to bury it. There are too many shelves. Too many locked cabinets. Too many wards beneath our feet. Too many books without titles. And somewhere inside all of it are records about the Hollowborn. Professor Neris' instructions were precise. Blood without emotional history. Magic interrupted inside protected ground. Effects that moved through a person rather than remaining attached to a place.

"Where do we start?"

His golden eyes travel over the thousand upon thousands of books surrounding us. The he exhales through his nose. "With the sections we're not supposed to enter." I turn my head slowly toward him. Naturally. And for some deeply concerning reason, I follow him.

We divide the work. Rhyven begins with architectural records and ward reports. Those sit in the oldest cabinets along the eastern wall. I take the student accounts. There are fewer than I expect. Not because students wrote less. Because fewer of their words were considered worth preserving. The realization irritates me. Wars are remembered through commanders, rulers and Councils. The people who spent them frightened in classrooms become numbers.

I search the catalogue. Most entries are listed by date and location. No names. I run one finger down the page. Western academy district. First interruption period. A shelf number follows. I find it in the third aisle. The volume is narrow and bound in faded grey leather. Its spine carries no title. Inside are copied testimonies. Not originals. Statements gathered after incidents. Several are written by professors. Two by healers. One by a wardkeeper. Near the back, I find a student.

Statement of Ilara Menn, first-year, Dawn cohort. My chest tightens at the familiar rank. First-year. Not a soldier. Not a historian. A student who had probably still needed directions between classes. I begin reading. We believed the bell had failed. No one moved when it rang because none of us heard it. Professor Athed continued speaking for several minutes. When the doors opened, students from the next lecture were waiting outside. They claimed they had been knocking. We heard nothing. The professor insisted the room was properly warded. The wardkeeper agreed. Every mark remained active. The next morning, two students could not use their manifestations. One recovered before midday. The other did not. The account ends. No explanation. No record of what happened to the second student. I turn the page. A later hand has added a note in the margin. Transferred from Academy care. Further records unavailable. Unavailable. A clean word for missing. I copy the passage into my notebook. Then another. A student describing a friend becoming disoriented during dinner. A group unable to sense the presence of a teacher standing directly beside them. A vampire first-year who cut her hand during weapons training and claimed her own blood felt unfamiliar. The incidents resemble ours. Not perfectly. Enough. I lose track of time.

Rhyven appears at the end of the aisle carrying two rolled maps beneath one arm. "You found something." It is not a question.

"How do you know?" I ask.

"You've stopped turning pages." I look down. He is right. My hand has remained on the same paragraph.

"A first-year wrote that her blood felt unfamiliar."

His expression stills. "When?"

"The early interruption period."

"Before the confirmed disappearances?"

"Yes." I show him the account.

He reads quickly. His jaw tightens at the note about the transferred student. "No further records."

"That seems common."

"It shouldn't."

"Why?"

"The Academy documents everything."

I glance toward the shelves. "Apparently not everything equally."

Rhyven looks at me. I expect an argument. Instead he nods once. "Come see this." He leads me toward a long table at the center of the archive.

Two maps lie open beneath the lantern light. Both show Varethia. The first resembles the modern Academy, though several towers are missing. The second does not. It depicts a sprawling complex extending much farther beneath the western cliffs. Entire halls sit below the structures we use now. Bridges connect towers that no longer exist. Courtyards occupy places now covered by stone.

I lean closer. "This was Varethia?"

"The earliest complete plan I could find." Rhyven answers.

"What happened to the missing sections?"

"No record."

"Destroyed during the Silent War?"

"That would be reasonable." His tone makes clear that reason has failed us again.

"But?" I ask.

"The removal marks are too clean." He points toward the western edge of the map. The missing sections are not drawn as ruins. The lines simply end. Architectural notations show walls deliberately sealed. Passages rerouted. Foundations reinforced.