Kael sat hunched over the desk, quill scratching furiously as he used detention for what it really was—time to finish an overdue assignment. I leaned back, arms crossed. I’d already finished mine days ago.
The silence was broken only by the soft scrape of parchment, the tick of the lantern flame, and Professor Thale’s occasional glance up from her own notes.
Then Kael froze. His eyes narrowed at the page in front of him. He muttered the words under his breath, barely loud enough to catch.
“R–Ryder…” His voice cracked as he looked up, face pale.
“What?” I leaned forward, confused by the way his blue stone flickered against the desk.
He tapped the book with the end of his quill, lips trembling. “It says here… someone corrupted your mother’s crystal.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
Kael’s voice sharpened as he read faster, tracing the lines with his finger. “A stone can only turn that shade of black if someone else forces corruption into it. It doesn’t happen naturally. Ryder—she was framed.”
I blinked at him, my pulse pounding in my ears. “Framed…?”
He nodded quickly, lowering his voice even more. “It’s in the Dark Magic text. But not the regular chapters—the words shift. It’s hidden, like a paragraph that doesn’t exist unless the right spell pulls it forward. Like someone tried to bury it.”
Across the room, Professor Thale’s quill paused mid-scratch. Her green eyes flicked up, studying us from behind her lenses.
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