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She walks closer. "Depends who you ask."

"Ask you." Rhyven says.

Mistress Marr studies him. Then the ledger. "Animals avoided them. Plants grew poorly. Magic failed. People claimed sounds changed."

My skin prickles. "Changed how?"

"Quieter." Silence. Cassian stops smiling. Mistress Marr continues. "My grandmother called them hollow places." Nobody moves. There it is. Not Hollowborn. Hollow places.

"Was she alive during the Silent War?" Nyra asks.

"No."

"Her parents?"

"Yes."

"Did they leave records?"

Mistress Marr looks at her. "Everyone left records." A pause. "The question is whether anyone bothered reading them."

That sends us deeper. Now we know what to search.

Thinning. Hollow. Quiet. Magic failure. Animal behavior. Words nobody at the Academy indexed under Hollowborn because they predate the name.

Suddenly— the basement changes. Not physically. Our understanding of it.

We find thirteen references in two hours. Three are useless. Four describe magical anomalies. Two mention missing livestock. One describes a child disappearing for six hours and returning unable to remember where she'd been. Another mentions four villagers vanishing over nine days. And then Caelen finds the first one that makes all five of us stop.

"Come here." His voice is different. We do. He has a census ledger open beside a handwritten civic report.

Names. Dates. Missing. Returned. Dead. Unknown.

Six people. Taken over fourteen days. Then— nothing.

Nyra leans over. "How long?"

Caelen turns the page. "Eleven days."

My stomach tightens. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No disappearances."

Cassian looks toward me. Four days. Our current silence suddenly feels much louder.

"Then what?" Rhyven asks. Caelen turns another page. A note has been added in different handwriting.

With no further persons missing from Varethian settlements for eleven days, local restrictions were reduced by order of the regional magistrate.

Cassian reads it twice. "That went well, I'm assuming." Nobody answers. Nyra reaches for the next civic volume. Same year. Later date. Pages turn. Turn. Turn. Then stop. Her finger lands. Message received from southern Elarion regarding unexplained absence of six residents from two settlements. Silence. Complete. I read it again.

Elarion. Six residents. Two settlements.

Cassian is the first to speak."That's not good."