The building was, if anything, even spookier the second time Serenity went in. This time, he didn’t have the company of a large group; sure, he didn’t know them all yet, but having more people was still reassuring. Raz’s presence helped, even though Serenity knew it was silly.

They also didn’t have the trouble the larger group did. There were no shadows or mysterious attacks in the dining hall. Nothing bothered them at all as they followed the directions to the Headmaster’s Office. It was dark and still; it could have been an old school on Earth with no protections beyond locks instead of the magically protected building they were in. There weren’t even any guards.

There was, however, a door that wasn’t mentioned in the directions Esme Tillon provided. It was made of metal and didn’t have a door handle. It also didn’t have hinges; in fact, it looked like it was set into the wall on both sides. It was probably a pocket door, one that slid to the side and wouldn’t be visible at all if it were fully open. The lack of a handle meant something else had to move it. There was a small circle where the metal was recessed; it wasn’t open, probably to protect the ward, but it seemed likely to be a keyhole.

Serenity tapped the door and it rang dully; a good look with his MageSight showed a near-void of mana in it, though there was definitely an enchantment embedded in the door frame. A quick test showed that the door was highly resistant to mana.

That was familiar; Serenity didn’t know what metal it was, since he never worked with it, but he knew it was fairly common. There were probably several different variants with similar properties, since he’d seen them in different colors over the years. Whatever it was, it was a relatively light but sturdy metal that was highly resistant to mana and commonly used when a ward wasn’t good enough. It was of no use in rituals or runes, but Serenity suspected that Earth’s industry would be very interested in its insulation.

Serenity wanted to see how it moved. There were a few options, but directly controlling the door with mana wasn’t one of them, at least not without an unreasonable amount of loss. Most of the mana would simply slide off the door and fail to do anything. Perhaps there was a “pushing” mechanism inside the wall? A connection on one side or the other of material that could be affected by mana and was physically connected to the door might work, too.

“Do you have any idea how to open the door?” Raz sounded frustrated.

Serenity blinked. Wasn’t the answer obvious? Apparently not. “Use your key.”

It wasn’t the only way in; even with a resistant door, it was obvious that some of the wards ran through the doorframe. The important stuff should be tucked behind the door, where Serenity couldn’t get at it, but it was possible to hack the ward with only the little bits available through the doorframe. It was difficult but Serenity could manage it; he’d learned from some of the best, after all. It wasn’t a skill he’d kept up with after the handful of decades where he did the work, but the knowledge had been useful far later for some of the powerful spells and rituals he used.

For that matter, he probably didn’t have to. The door wasn’t perfectly sealed; if he could get part of himself under or around it, he’d be able to access the entire ward without the door in the way. That would make it far easier. There was a reason most ward-crackers had tools that let them sneak a magical sensor past the door; it opened up all sorts of options, even if all they could do was see in and not do anything. Serenity didn’t have those tools anymore, but he did have his Sovereign form.

Not that any of that should be necessary here. There was no reason to break a ward when you had the key.

Raz ducked his head. Serenity suspected that if he were human, he’d have been blushing in embarrassment over his forgetfulness. That was certainly what his movement reminded Serenity of.

Raz pulled a simple key out of nowhere. It didn’t look like a key to a mundane door; instead, it was a cylinder with a larger sphere affixed to one end. That wasn’t the only possible design for a Status Key, but it was one of the more common ones.

Serenity knew he’d actually removed it from the Voice’s storage, which was displayed on the Status of the person who owned the item. One of these days, he’d have to ask the Voice how it decided which things it was willing to store; storing a random key like this and yet not storing a Guild card seemed like an odd choice. There had to be more to it.

Raz pressed the key against the door. Nothing happened.

“Try the frame,” Serenity suggested. “Not sure if it’s to the right or the left, but one of the two.” That was where the enchantment was, after all. The resistant door wasn’t a good place for enchantments. “If neither works, you could also try-”

Serenity stopped talking as the sound of metal moving against metal told him he didn’t need to offer more ideas. Raz’s first tap against the doorframe must have worked, because the circular cover in the middle of the door was no longer there.

This time, Raz didn’t need a prod from Serenity. He noticed the opening himself and pushed the cylinder in. When the door shook, Raz let go in surprise. The door slid to the left about two inches and revealed an opening into the next room. Raz reached for the key to remove it from the door. The moment he touched it, the key disappeared and the door resumed its motion.

Moments later, there was a doorway with no visible door. Serenity could see where the door fit into the pocket if he looked, but it sat flush enough that it wasn’t obvious without paying attention. If the door were normally left open, a lot of people probably never knew it was there. That could easily be the reason it wasn’t mentioned in the directions; it wasn’t normally closed.

The area past the door was obviously a receptionist’s area; there was a door opposite the entranceway, but in front of and to the side of it was a desk. The desk was covered in papers and several loosely-bound books. Serenity didn’t stop to see what they were.

The room past the receptionist’s desk had to be the Headmaster’s. When Serenity and Raz entered, they found a suite, rather than a room. The first room was a formal greeting area; it was neat and organized, with no place for anything to be hidden other than a clear liquor cabinet that sat off to one side. They left that alone for now; there was no reason to think the Register would be in the liquor cabinet.

There were three doors that led off of the formal room. Naturally, the first one they tried was pointless; it led to an empty and unfurnished room. There was a door on the far side, but it seemed better to check out the other two rooms first.

The next one they tried was the one at the back. It was a spacious office; at least, it should have been spacious. There was only a single table, a chair, and a pair of bookcases for actual furniture, but other than a small work area, the entire room was filled with stacked books, binders, and papers. Some of them were stuck in frames that almost seemed like miniature bookshelves, while others were simply stacked on top of each other on the floor.

It looked impossible to find anything, especially since many of the stacks leaned against each other or looked like they’d been knocked over at some point. The only good part was that the area outside the first few easily accessible feet was covered in dust; it looked very much like the papers had been there for years. Since the Register was used fairly frequently, it was likely not in that area.

The table seemed like a much better guess, so Serenity put together a spell to produce a light and made it hover above the work area. Raz had his light, but Serenity needed his own if he were to actually read anything. He was slower to produce a light than Ren’shal, but Ren’shal had to be using a Skill; she could produce light-balls fast enough to use in combat. She probably also had a Light Affinity, where Serenity had to depend on the properties of Energy. It worked but since it was less specialized it was slower and usually less efficient.

There were a lot of papers on the table, along with several notebooks, but nothing that looked like a formal School Register and nothing that seemed to contain a map. That was disappointing.

Serenity and Raz took the time to quickly look around the cleaner area, with Raz reading things and Serenity looking for magic. They didn’t find the Register, but Serenity found two enchanted books and Raz found a series of partial resignation letters. None seemed complete, but they made it clear that the Headmaster had been considering leaving even before the attack.

The reason he wanted out wasn’t clear from the letters, but the fact that the majority of the papers and books on the table were records of cash flow gave Serenity a good guess. Either the Academy had a problem the Headmaster didn’t want to solve or the Headmaster had a problem. Serenity didn’t know which and he didn’t care to take the time to figure it out.

The first enchanted book was one half of a communication artifact, a book that would transmit whatever was written in it to the other book it was “paired” with. It would also show whatever was received from the other side. Items like that usually had a lifespan limited as much by their number of pages as by the actual limit of the magic; they didn’t have any way to erase the words that were sent or received, so eventually they would run out of pages.

The book that the communication artifact worked with wasn’t there; it must be with whoever the Headmaster wanted to communicate with. Serenity decided to leave the book where it was; without the other half, it wouldn’t be useful and they had no idea where the other half was. They couldn’t even use the text that was already there to find the other half, because the book was blank other than a few scrawled lines that looked like a test.

It seemed unlikely that the Headmaster would tell them, either, since Esme had asked him where the Register was and what else they might find in his office and all he’d done was shrug. Serenity was convinced he’d given up. From the letters on the desk, it seemed likely that while the attack might have pushed him over the edge, it wasn’t the only problem.

The second enchanted book was more promising, because it was at least connected to the school. The front cover actually showed an image of Stallet Academy that Serenity recognized; it faced the main entrance. The book didn’t say what it was, but the very first page had two glowing words: Defenses Active.

Whatever the book was, Serenity thought it might be more useful than the Register for assaulting Stallet. It was definitely coming with them.

Lillene

Serenity figures they can just come back for the communication book later, once they liberate the Academy, if it's important. Most likely, though, it's just something of the Headmaster's that he'll take when he clears his stuff out of the suite for the next occupant.