We went down.
Not through the concealed passage that Malcris had used — Orvyn had sealed that permanently, two hundred years of solidified Aether filling the route like concrete filling a pipe. We went through the Headmaster's route — the path that didn't exist on any blueprint, including my classified one. The path that Orvyn had used during the Malcris interception. The path that belonged to the academy's architecture in the same way that the impossible garden belonged to the Headmaster's office — by existing because Orvyn said it should.
The route began behind a wall in the Administrative Substructure. Orvyn placed his hand against the stone and the stone rearranged itself — not opening, not breaking, but reorganizing. The molecules shifting like a crowd making way for someone important. A passage appeared where there had been solid rock. Not carved. Permitted.
