Page 151 of House Ignis

We moved deeper until the path fractured, splitting left, right, and straight ahead into the gloom.

All of them were unlit. All of them looked cursed.

"Of course it does this," I sighed, my fire flickering in my palms. "Nope. We are not splitting up. I've seen how this ends in the stories."

She rolled her eyes, though she stayed glued to my side. "Obviously. You think I want to get eaten by some subterranean book ghost?"

“Good.” I exhaled, though the tension in my shoulders refused to leave. “Then left it is.”

The corridor narrowed until the stone pressed close on either side. The deeper we ventured, the brighter the symbols on the walls became—etched into the pillars and burned into the floor.

"Whoa," Jules whispered, her breath fogging in the freezing air.

My heart thudded against my ribs, hard and erratic. I recognized them. Those swirls, those curling, aggressive sigils... They were the exact ones scribbled in Jax's journal.

I had thought they were just a code he'd invented or some dead tongue from a dusty textbook.

But here, they pulsed softly with a rhythmic magic. They were alive. They were breathing.

"Seems like we took the right path," I muttered.

"Finally," Jules said—just as a floor tile sank beneath her boot with a hollow click.

"Shit—"

A hidden trap in the column to our right burst into life. A searing arc of fire hissed through the air aimed directly for Jules’s head.

I tackled her, shoving her to the floor a split second before the flames roared over us.

The flames passed close enough to singe the very edges of her orange curls.

"My hair!" she hissed, frantically swatting at her head. "That almost took my face off!"

"You're lucky I'm fast," I grunted, offering her a hand to haul her up. "Otherwise, you'd be bald and eyebrowless right now."

We pressed on, ducking through low arches and dodging a second trap that sprayed freezing silver mist from the ceiling, until the corridor finally opened into a wide circular chamber.

And there it was.

An alcove of books, ancient and suffocated by dust. Some were stacked on crumbling shelves, while others floated inches off the ground, held aloft by faintly glowing runes.

The entire chamber hummed with a power that made my skin itch, but what drew us in was the pedestal in the center.

Resting upon it was a single black-covered book.

Of fucking course it was black. Apparently, forbidden ancient knowledge didn’t come bound in pastel pink with little gold stars.

Predictable. And terrifying.

"Well, I guess this is it," Jules muttered, her scholar's heart clearly warring with her survival instinct.

We stepped forward together, the chamber falling into an eerie, heavy silence. The air smelled of old ash and something sharp, something metallic that reminded me of blood.

I reached out, my fingers trembling as I brushed them along the surface of the pedestal.

Dust spiraled away into the blue light, revealing a single word etched into the stone beneath the book.

VEYARI.