Another cloak

The door yawned wide, spilling thin light across the dusty shelves. Seroth filled the frame, tall and still, like a blade balanced upright. Those pale eyes fixed on them without blinking.

Lucien’s heart slammed against his ribs. The scrap of Kara’s cloak burned against his skin, hidden under his tunic.

Seroth didn’t speak at once. The silence stretched, thick enough to choke on.

Then, softly,

“Students. What are you doing here?”

Toren gave a strangled laugh, too loud, too nervous. “Uh—field trip? Wrong door?”

Arian groaned under his breath. “Smooth.”

Seroth’s gaze slid over each of them, deliberate, measuring. When it landed on Lucien, he felt stripped bare again, like every secret in him was laid out on the table.

Lucien forced words past the lump in his throat. “We… got lost.”

Even as he said it, he knew how pathetic it sounded.

Seroth stepped inside, cloak brushing the dusty floor. “Lost.” The word came out tasting of disbelief. “Strange, then, that you found the one room no student ever bothers with.”

Darius shifted uneasily. “You following us?”

The inquisitor’s lips curved, not quite a smile. “I follow the truth. It tends to lead me to interesting places.”

Arian bristled, stepping slightly in front of Lucien, as if to shield him. “And if the truth isn’t here?”

Seroth’s eyes glinted. “Then perhaps it hides on you.”

Lucien froze. Heat surged beneath his tunic where the bloodstained fabric lay concealed. Did they know? Could they sense it somehow?

His hand twitched toward the scrap before he caught himself. Don’t move. Don’t give it away.

---

Seroth prowled further into the room, brushing dust from a shelf with one gloved finger. “Curious,” they murmured. “Curious that in a time of fear and death, some students wander places they do not belong. Curious that they whisper among themselves rather than sleep.”

Caelith’s voice was clipped but steady. “Curiosity isn’t a crime.”

“No,” Seroth agreed. “But it leads to it.”

They turned suddenly, sharp as a hawk. “Tell me: what do you fear?”

The question cracked like a whip.

Toren blinked. “Uh… failing my exams?”

Seroth ignored him, eyes locked on Lucien. “What do you fear?”

Lucien’s mouth went dry. Every possible answer rushed forward—the dark, the sigils, losing control, you—but none would leave his lips.

Finally, he forced out, “Losing the people I care about.”

Something flickered in Seroth’s gaze. Approval? Amusement? It was gone too fast to tell.

“Honest,” they murmured. “Honesty is rare here.”

They lingered one more heartbeat, then turned for the door. “Return to your dormitories. Do not wander again.”

And then, with no sound but the whisper of their cloak, Seroth was gone.

The group stood frozen until Toren exhaled hard. “Okay. That was… terrifying. I thought I'd wet my pant.”

“Not funny,” Darius snapped.

“It wasn’t a joke,” Toren muttered.

---

As soon as the echoes of Seroth’s steps faded, Arian rounded on Lucien. “What were you thinking, hiding that?”

Lucien pulled the scrap free with shaking hands. The bloodstain looked darker in the torchlight. “If they saw it—if they knew—it would vanish into their cloak and we’d never see it again.”

Darius frowned. “And instead we’ll just… carry it around like cursed contraband? Brilliant.”

“Better than letting them bury it,” Arian said. His voice was fierce, but his hands trembled as he touched the fabric. “This proves something’s being staged. Kara’s cloak shouldn’t be here. Not unless someone wanted us to find it—or wanted to plant it.”

Caelith’s brow furrowed. “Planted evidence can be more dangerous than truth.”

Toren backed toward the door. “Yeah, well, you geniuses can argue philosophy. Me? I vote we burn it before it burns us.”

Lucien shook his head. “Not yet. It’s the only real piece of proof we have. If we destroy it, we’re blind again.”

Silence followed. Heavy. Reluctant.

Finally, Arian said, “Then we hide it. Somewhere safe. Not on you.”

Lucien nodded, relief loosening his chest just slightly. “Agreed.”

---

They slipped back to their dormitory under watchful eyes and drawn torches. By the time they shut the door, exhaustion weighed on every limb.

But sleep didn’t come.

Arian sat cross-legged on the floor, cloak scrap folded carefully in his lap, staring at it as if it might speak.

Lucien watched from his bed. “You think it means someone took her cloak after she died?”

“Or before,” Arian said quietly. “Or maybe she never… maybe…” He trailed off, jaw clenching.

Toren rolled over with a groan. “Please, not more ghost theories. I’m begging you.”

Caelith’s pen scratched softly against parchment. “Not ghosts. Patterns. Whoever staged this wanted us to doubt. To question burial, death, identity.”

Darius frowned. “Why us, though? Why leave crumbs where we’d be the ones to find them?”

That question sat in the air like a blade. No one wanted to touch it.

Lucien closed his eyes, but Seroth’s pale gaze burned behind his lids. Watching. Knowing.

Sleep never came.

---

The next day dragged like a chain. Classes were hollow, tension thicker than chalk dust. Professors taught with clipped tones, eyes darting to the doors. Guards flanked every hall.

Rumors churned louder: another missing student, though no name confirmed. Some swore they’d seen a body carried under sheets. Others whispered it was only a decoy.

At lunch, Lucien pushed his food around his plate, appetite gone. Arian leaned across the table, voice low. “We can’t keep waiting. Whoever’s behind this is tightening the noose. Either we gotta do something or leave.”

Toren stabbed his bread roll. “Oh sure, let’s just confront the creepy inquisitor with our bloody rag. What could go wrong?”

Caelith shook his head. “Seroth isn’t the only danger. If Aldwyn’s hiding bodies, the faculty’s split. Some protect, some conceal. We need to know which.”

Darius muttered, “And how do we find out without ending up like Kara?”

No one answered.

---

That evening, despite lockdown, Lucien found himself pulled toward the library. He didn’t know why—habit, maybe, or the faint hope of finding something buried in old records.

He slipped inside through a side stair, heart hammering. The stacks were dim, silent but for the rustle of parchment.

And then—footsteps.

Lucien ducked between shelves, pressing his back to cool stone.

Two voices, hushed but sharp. Professors. He recognized Aldwyn’s clipped tone. The other, low and urgent—Headmistress.

“…can’t keep them in the dark forever,” she whispered.

“They are children,” Aldwyn hissed. “Fear keeps them compliant.”

“And if fear drives them into rebellion?”

A pause.

“Then we remind them what rebellion costs.”

Lucien’s blood chilled.

Aldwyn again: “Seroth will find the source soon enough. Until then, the Council must not know what we lost.”

“What we lost.” The phrase sank claws into Lucien’s mind.

He risked a glance.

Aldwyn stood in the half-light, features carved from stone. The Headmaster's assistant's face was drawn, shadows under her eyes.

And at Aldwyn’s hip—just visible in the torchlight—hung a scrap of fabric.

Blue. Stained.

Another cloak.

---

Lucien’s breath caught. His hand clenched around the one hidden in their dorm. Two cloaks. Two bloody scraps.

One truth: they were being played.

And the game was nowhere near over.

•••