Some institutions don’t just teach. They consume.
When nineteen-year-old scholarship student Seraphine Vale arrives at Velmoor Academy, the north’s most prestigious magic school, she knows she doesn’t belong. Not by bloodline, status, or the way the ancient halls seem built for everyone except her.
But Velmoor has been waiting for her.
After discovering a hidden journal in the restricted archive, Seraphine uncovers a terrifying truth: the school’s power is sustained by draining its brightest students of the magic that brought them there. The only other person who’s found the same evidence is Caelum Ashvere — legacy student, faculty favourite, and the last person she should trust.
He represents everything Velmoor gave freely to people like him and denied to people like her. He challenges her, infuriates her, and proves to be her intellectual equal.
Together, they have one term to expose a secret hidden for two hundred years before the academy consumes them too.
