[Celestial Academy — Day 12 — 11:30 PM]
Valeria had given the notice that afternoon.
A folded paper slipped under Alex's door. No signature. Just three words: *Magnus is out.*
The team moved at eleven.
---
The fifteen‑minute window in the north corridor — the one Kira had mapped on the first day — took them from the lodging wing to the old building's outer courtyard without crossing any active guards.
The main door had a lock.
Raven opened it in forty seconds using the same technique Soren had shown her in Veltharr.
They entered.
---
The inside smelled different from the rest of the Academy.
Not of decay — the opposite.
Of preservation.
The kind of smell a space has where maintenance enchantments have been active for decades without anyone renewing them because they don't need renewal.
Time hadn't fully passed within these walls.
