Morana Ashwood came to Everbrooke Academy to stop burning things down. She stayed for the necklace. She stood at the base of the watch tower and pressed the silver moon against her chest. Her mother had worn it here once, years ago, then vanished. Nobody would tell Morana why. She had a name, a face in an old photo, and nothing else. No lead meant no place to start. Red hair stuck to her forehead. Around her the school felt too loud, too new. Students with wings and scales moved past her without a glance. She was the human girl who set a textbook on fire in her first week. She did not belong. But her mother had, and that was reason enough to dig. She found the classroom she had been warned about. The oldest professor at Everbrooke taught there. Zephyra Nocturne stood at the front, black hair spilling to her waist, rings flashing as she wrote on the board. She did not turn when Morana entered. "The children always come to me," Zephyra said. "Late, and desperate, and clutching something they think matters." Her eyes found the necklace. Her writing stopped. Morana stepped closer. "You knew her. My mother wore this." Zephyra laughed, low and bitter. "Ashwood." She said the name like tasting old poison. "So the seed grew after all. She sat where you stand, dear. Green eyes. Too much fire in her hands." She turned. "Then she took something from beneath this school and ran. And she never came back." Morana's heart slammed. "Took what? Where?" "Some questions," said a deep voice behind her, "already cost your mother everything." Morana spun. The guardian filled the doorway. His armor was black, his eyes burned red, and his horns nearly scraped the frame. Lo'kan Ardrick did not enter. He watched her the way a wall watches a crack. "You wear her face," he growled. "And her necklace. Both are trouble." Zephyra clasped her ringed hands. "He guards the door she opened, child. The way down. He remembers what she found there. Don't you, sentinel?" Lo'kan's jaw tightened. "The underground stays shut. Some knowledge comes with a price the young cannot pay." Morana looked between them. The professor who hated her mother. The guardian who feared what she'd touched. For the first time since arriving, she was not lost. There was a place. A door beneath the school. Her mother had gone through it and never returned. "Where is the entrance?" she asked. Lo'kan stepped fully inside. The lanterns dimmed. "You will not find it from me." He leaned close. "But you already know you'll look anyway." He was right. Morana's palms grew warm. Smoke curled from her fingers, and she did not care. She had spent weeks with no thread to pull. Now she had one, and a locked door at the end of it.