Read Chapter 33: The Unmasking

The amphitheater blazed with Founder’s Day light—candles in iron sconces, banners of faded gold, the scent of old incense and fresh fear. Élodie stood in the shadows of the upper gallery, dust still clinging to her robes, her heart slamming against her ribs. Below, the Dean stood at the center of the circular stage, arms raised, the founder’s chamber open behind her like a wound in the stone.

The assembled faculty and students watched in reverent silence. The ritual had not yet begun, but the air was thick with anticipation—and with the thick, cloying pulse of the Dean’s magic, reaching out like invisible threads toward the crowd.

Élodie had no time for stealth. No time for cleverness.

She stepped to the balustrade and raised both hands, the locket burning warm against her chest.

“Stop!”

Her voice cracked through the ceremony like a whip. Heads turned. Murmurs rippled. The Dean’s eyes snapped upward—black, bottomless, and suddenly very, very old.

“Élodie Marchand,” the Dean said, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. “How kind of you to join us. The memory thief, surrendering at last.”

“I’m not surrendering,” Élodie said. “I’m bearing witness.”

She called on the memories—all of them. The ones from the diary, from the locket, from the faint traces of the archives that had been bricked away and hidden. She pulled them up from her own mind like water from a deep well, and then she pushed them outward, into the air, into the light.

The projection bloomed above the amphitheater like a thousand lanterns breaking loose. The assembly gasped as images flowered across the walls, the ceiling, the very air around them.

A young student, terrified, kneeling before an altar of salt and bone. The Dean—younger then, but unmistakable—drawing the sacrifice. The student’s life bleeding into her, her face smoothing, her eyes deepening with stolen years.

A second image. A third. A fourth.

Decades of them. Different names. Different faces. The same ritual.

Lucien’s sister, her face caught mid-scream.

The Dean’s voice turned to ice. “You dare.”

“I remember them all,” Élodie said, and her voice shook but did not break. “Every single one. They are part of me now. And they are all you.”

The amphitheater erupted. Professors rose from their seats. Students shouted, pointed, recoiled. The Dean’s composure cracked—just a hairline at first, then a split. Her face contorted, not with fear, but with fury.

“Seize her!” the Dean shrieked, and Delacroix burst from the shadows near the stage, wand raised, face twisted.

He lunged toward the gallery stairs. Élodie braced—and then Théo was there, stepping into the path, his own wand up, his stance wide and immovable. A shield flared around them both, bright as a struck bell.

“Not today,” Théo said.

Delacroix’s spell shattered against the shield. He reeled back, and Théo advanced, gritting his teeth, pushing the barrier forward. The enforcers who had followed Delacroix hesitated, glancing between the projection and the chaos, uncertainty flickering across their faces.

But the Dean was not done.

She rose from the stage, her robes streaming with power, her eyes locked on Élodie with murderous intent. Her magic lashed out—not at the shield, but past it. Élodie felt the spell catch her, wrap around her mind like a fist.

“If you will not bow,” the Dean hissed, “then I will take what is mine.”

The pull began—a steal, the Dean’s signature, her eternal hunger. Élodie felt her memories tear loose at the edges, felt the pain of a thousand stolen lives pressing against her skull. She gasped, staggered, darkness blooming at the edges of her vision.

But Élodie had done her research. She had read the memory. She knew the trick.

The Dean could take, but she could not choose what she received.

Élodie opened herself fully. Not resisting. Not running. She let the Dean reach deep into her—and then she fed her everything.

Twenty years of the archive’s pain, the victims’ final moments, their terror, their rage, their grief. A torrent of collective agony, built in layer upon layer, the grief of sisters, brothers, parents, lovers. The weight of lives cut short and memories burned.

The Dean screamed.

The first scream was shock. The second was pain. The third was something unravelling, something cracking from within. Her body began to ripple—age flickering across her face, young to old to young again, as the memories fought inside her, refusing to be contained.

“What—what have you—” The Dean’s voice broke. She clutched her head, her nails digging into her temples. “Stop! Stop!”

“I can’t,” Élodie said, and her voice was quiet now, almost gentle. “They won’t stop. They remember you. They will never stop.”

The Dean dropped to her knees on the stage, her power guttering like a candle in a storm. The projection above them swirled, then steadied—focusing on a single image: a young woman, the Dean as she had been, weeping over a body she had not meant to take. The first one. The one that had made her immortal.

The silence in the amphitheater was absolute.

Then, from the back, a door burst open. Ministry enforcers flooded in, wands raised, chains of silver glowing in their hands. The Dean looked up, covered in the ghosts of her own sins, and for the first time, Élodie saw fear in her eyes—human fear, real fear, the terror of a person who had spent decades believing she could never be caught.

“Élodie Marchand,” the lead enforcer said, “you are under the protection of the Ministry of Magical Heritage. The Council has reviewed your testimony, and the wards of this university have spoken for you.”

Élodie blinked. She hadn’t contacted the Ministry.

Behind her, Professor Allard stepped from the shadows, his face pale but steady, his wand lowered. “I did,” he said wearily. “A week ago. I thought it was a precaution.”

The enforcers seized the Dean. She did not resist—her eyes were empty, her body stiff, her mind still drowning in stolen sorrow. Delacroix was pulled from the gallery stairs, his wand snapped in half, his protest swallowed by the roar of the crowd.

Élodie swayed. The locket was cold against her chest, and her gift was still intact—she could feel it, dimmed but alive. She had not made her sacrifice. Not yet.

Théo’s hand caught her elbow. “Easy.”

She turned her head toward him, managing a weak smile. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying,” he said softly.

“I know.” Her knees buckled, and the amphitheater spun around her. The celebration, the shouts, the hands reaching toward her—everything blurred, everything faded, and then there was only darkness, welcoming her home.