Constructs were fragile things, Fin had learned. For all their seeming solidity, they were ultimately held together by will and magic, threads that could be cut with the right knowledge. He'd never seen one collapse so completely, though, or so personally. The memory of false-Rebecca's face dissolving still made his chest tight, even knowing the real Rebecca was safe in the infirmary, shaken but unharmed after being found bound in her dormitory.

The library's vast halls stretched before him like a cathedral of knowledge, each towering shelf a pillar supporting the weight of centuries. Ancient tomes lined the walls in perfect rows, their leather spines worn smooth by countless scholarly fingers. The air itself seemed thick with accumulated wisdom, carrying the familiar scent of aged parchment and the subtle tang of preservation enchantments.

He moved through the stacks with purpose, though his mind kept returning to that moment when the construct wearing Rebecca's face had crumble.

Focus, he told himself. Rebecca is alive. The construct was just a distraction, but from what?

His fingers traced along the spines of books as he searched: Elemental Binding Theory, The Artificer's Compendium, Mana Matrices and Their Applications. Each title offered promises of understanding, but when he pulled the volumes from their shelves, he found only fragments of what he needed.

At a secluded table tucked between two towering stacks, Fin spread out his collection: Constructs of Clay and Intent; Arcane Automata, a thick tome bound in what looked suspiciously like scales; and Forbidden Crafts, a brittle text so old that opening it released small puffs of dust that made him sneeze.

The books spoke of wonders and horrors in equal measure. Sentient golems animated by complex mana matrices, their clay bodies serving as vessels for artificial consciousness. The Veiled Artificers of the Third Age, masters who could craft constructs so lifelike they could fool lovers and enemies alike. Techniques for binding intention into matter, for weaving memory into mud.

But as Fin read, his excitement curdled into frustration. Key passages were missing, not damaged by age, but deliberately removed. Pages had been cut out with surgical precision, their absence leaving gaps in crucial explanations. Other sections were smudged beyond recognition, as if someone had taken great care to obscure specific details while leaving the surrounding text intact.

Someone's been here before me, Fin realized, his jaw tightening. Someone who didn't want these secrets preserved.

The pattern was too consistent to be coincidence. Every book that mentioned the creation of humanoid constructs bore similar scars. Every text that detailed the binding of personality to clay had been systematically censored. Someone had gone to considerable effort to hide the truth about what he'd faced.

Fin carefully copied what remained into his notebook, his handwriting growing more cramped as his urgency increased. When he finished, he sealed his notes inside his pocket realm, alongside the small vial of mud he'd borrowed from Instructor Mara from the golem's remains. The clay had hardened, but it still felt wrong, too cold, too heavy for such a small amount of earth.

Instructor Chale's office occupied the academy's eastern tower, its walls lined with specimens that caught the afternoon light like captured stars. Formations jutted from wooden shelves: azurite clusters that hummed with barely contained lightning, obsidian shards that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, and chunks of meteoric iron that made the air around them taste of copper. Charts covered every available wall space, depicting tectonic flows and mana currents with the precision of a master cartographer.

The Instructor himself was bent over a worktable when Fin entered, his weathered hands carefully separating layers from a piece of sedimentary rock. Chale had spent decades in the field, and it showed in every line of his face and callus on his palms. His hair, once black, had gone silver-white from exposure to various magical minerals.

"Ah, Fin," Chale said without looking up. "I heard about your excitement in the Library. Something about a construct, yes?"

Fin placed the vial on the professor's workbench, watching as the older man's expression shifted from mild interest to sharp attention. "It dissolved after I questioned it. I was hoping you could tell me something about its composition."

Chale set aside his geological sample and lifted the vial to the light. The hardened mud looked innocuous enough, just gray-brown clay that might have come from any riverbank. But when the professor uncorked it and scattered a few grains across a rune-etched slate, Fin saw his eyebrows rise.

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"May I?" Chale asked, gesturing toward the sample.

At Fin's nod, the instructor began to chant in the old tongue, his voice taking on the rolling cadence of deep earth. The runes carved into the slate began to glow with steady amber light, and the scattered grains responded, each mote pulsing like a tiny heartbeat. The effect lasted only moments, but it was enough to make Chale's face go grave.

"This is most unusual," the instructor murmured, using a small brush to gather the sample back into its container. "This isn't common potter's clay, nor even the refined earth we use for basic constructs. These are Solare Marsh silicates."

Fin felt his stomach drop. He'd heard of the Solare Empire, their distant neighbors, where the supposed Shadow Prime had Imprinted on someone.

"Wouldn't that be expensive to export," Fin said carefully.

"Expensive, dangerous, and incredibly difficult to work with," Chale conformed. "The silicates are naturally unstable, prone to mana resonance cascade if improperly handled. Using them in construct work would require not just exceptional skill, but access to resources that few possess. This clay alone would cost more than most mages earn in a year."

The Instructor's fingers drummed against the workbench as he considered the implications. "Mara had someone else look into it," he said after a moment. "They couldn't trace a mana signature. Every construct should retain traces of its creator's magical pattern. I'm also not picking up anything. Someone has been very thorough in obscuring those traces."

"What does that mean?"

"In my opinion, they would have to be at least Tier Four to pull something like this off."

Fin thanked the professor and left the office with Chale's words echoing in his mind like a funeral bell. This hadn't been the work of some ambitious student or rogue enchanter seeking to make a name for themselves. The golem that had worn Rebecca's face was the product of careful planning, significant investment, and deliberate concealment.

A calculated move, he thought as he climbed the stairs toward the headmaster's tower. But calculated toward what end?

Headmaster Elijah's office occupied the academy's highest point.

He sat behind his desk. His gray hair caught the light of floating mana globes and his dark eyes held the weight of accumulated knowledge and hard-won wisdom.

"You have something for me?" Elijah asked as Fin approached.

Wordlessly, Fin placed the hair bow on the desk's polished surface. The accessory looked almost absurd in such austere surroundings. But as Elijah leaned forward to examine it, his expression began to change.

"You found this on the construct?" the headmaster asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"In its hair," Fin confirmed, watching closely. "It was the only thing that didn't dissolve with the rest."

Elijah's fingers hovered over the bow without quite touching it, and Fin saw the moment when recognition struck. The headmaster's composed mask slipped, revealing something that might have been fear, or perhaps just the weight of very old, very painful memories.

"These aren't decorative stitches," Elijah said quietly, his voice carrying the tone of a man speaking to ghosts. "They're lost runes. Specifically, they're the calling cards of the Order of the Silent Voice."

The name meant nothing to Fin, but the way Elijah spoke it, like an oath or a curse, made the hair on his neck stand up.

"I thought them destroyed a century ago," the headmaster continued, his gaze growing distant. "We fought a war to ensure it. A war that cost more than most people know."

"Who were they?" Fin asked, leaning forward despite himself.

Elijah was quiet for a long moment, his fingers now tracing the edge of the bow without quite touching the silk. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of history.

"The Order of the Silent Voice believed that chaos came from division, that multiple kingdoms, competing interests, and individual freedoms created nothing but suffering and war. They sought to unite the world under a single ruler, themselves, believing that absolute control would bring absolute peace. A noble goal, perhaps, if pursued through noble means."

The headmaster's expression hardened. "But their methods were anything but noble. They were masters of manipulation, infiltration, and precise violence. They would destabilize entire regions through carefully placed assassinations, economic manipulation, and political intrigue."

Elijah met his eyes, and Fin saw genuine worry there. "The Order had a particular interest in recruiting sharp minds, scholars, inventors, anyone whose intelligence could serve their cause. We never understood why they were so focused on intellectual recruitment, but the pattern was consistent."

The headmaster lifted the bow carefully, examining the nearly invisible runes with the eye of an expert. "This enchantment mirrors their traditional craft perfectly. It's not merely decorative, it's a signature, a way of marking their work. If someone is using their techniques, their knowledge..."

"Then they might still exist," Fin finished.

"Or someone has access to their secrets, which may be worse. The Order was destroyed through great sacrifice, but their knowledge was never fully eradicated. We thought we had contained it, but perhaps we were wrong."

Elijah set the bow down gently, as if it might explode at any moment. "Be very careful, Fin. If the Order truly has returned, or if someone is wielding their power, then what happened with young Rebecca may be only the beginning. They think in terms of centuries, not years. Every move is calculated, every action serves a greater design."

As Fin left the headmaster's office, the weight of conspiracy settled on his shoulders like a lead cloak. Somewhere in the world, ancient knowledge stirred in modern hands. The Order of the Silent Voice, or their inheritors, had marked him as a target worth their attention.

The question was: what did they want with him? And what were they willing to destroy to get it?

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