Callum Wrynn sat in the corner of the Grimsby library with his sleeves rolled up and a bucket of grey water by his feet. A sour smell filled the air. The old shelves hadn't been cleaned in years. Most of them hadn't even been touched.
"Wrynn, when you're done with the second row, you can start on the back section. Don't touch anything that looks older than you," said Librarian Thorne without looking up from her desk.
"Yes, ma'am," Callum said. He dipped the rag in the water and went back to scrubbing. The cloth came away black with dust and mold.
This was his third detention in a week. He hadn't broken any rules on purpose. He'd corrected a senior student during Practical Dustwork, and they didn't like that. The teacher had laughed, but the student had filed a complaint.
Now he was here, in a cold library basement, cleaning shelves that hadn't seen daylight in decades.
He reached the end of the second row and stood to stretch. His back popped. As he looked around, he saw a small doorway set behind a crooked set of shelves. There was no label. Just a narrow arch, half-covered by an old tapestry.
Curious, he stepped closer.
The tapestry was covered in stains and symbols he didn't recognize. One looked like a broken wheel. Another, a candle with no flame.
He pulled the fabric aside. Behind it was a wooden door. The knob was made of black iron.
He looked back. Thorne was still at her desk, writing something with a loud scratching quill. She didn't notice him.
Callum opened the door.
The hinges creaked. A rush of cold air met his face. Inside was a narrow stone staircase, leading down into the dark.
He paused. There were no signs saying "off-limits." Maybe this was another part of the storage section. Maybe it was just forgotten.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The stairs creaked under his weight. He used his small torch, the one he carried for reading at night. It gave off a pale, steady glow.
The staircase went down further than he expected. He counted forty steps before it opened into a low, wide room lined with shelves.
Unlike the main library, these shelves were made of dark material. The books here were bound in cloth and twine. Many didn't have titles. Some had locks. Others had symbols burned into their spines.
Callum moved slowly, looking at the labels. Most were unreadable. One shelf held scrolls sealed with wax stamps that crumbled at his touch.
At the far end of the room, there was a desk covered in loose papers. A brass lamp sat in the corner, unlit but dry.
He took out his wand and tapped. The lamp flickered to life.
The papers were full of notes, neat handwriting. Charts. Spell diagrams. Names.
One page caught his eye.
"Ashmark Meeting Minutes, 3rd Autumn Cycle"
He read more. It described a group of magicians meeting in secret, discussing a set of spells that had been struck from the official curriculum. They called themselves the Assembly. They believed magic had been narrowed too far, that schools like Grimsby had stripped it of purpose.
Callum sat down in the wooden chair behind the desk.
He read for a long time.
When he returned to the main library, Librarian Thorne was gone. So was the cleaning bucket. The clock on the wall said he had been gone for two hours.
He said nothing. He left the rag on the desk and walked out.
The next day, during History of Spells, Callum couldn't stop thinking about the documents. He barely listened to Professor Cleane talk about the Foundation Wars and the standardization of hexing.
After class, he caught up with Nora Reed-his friend, in the hallway.
"Do you know anything about the Ashmark Assembly?" he asked.
Nora looked up from her notebook. "You read that name in one of the forbidden theory books?"
"Sort of. I found a document. I think it was real."
She raised an eyebrow. "You think or you know?"
"I know. It was a meeting record."
She paused. "You want to show me?"
"After curfew. Tonight. Meet me at the library basement."
Nora didn't say yes, but she also didn't say no.
That night, they met in the corridor by the storage stairwell. Nora had a small lamp and a dull knife tucked in her boot.
"Just in case," she said.
Callum pushed the door open. The stairs groaned as they went down.
When they entered the Archive room, Nora stopped.
"This place isn't on any map. It shouldn't exist," she said.
Callum nodded. "I know."
He showed her the desk, the papers, the shelves.
She read in silence.
After a few minutes, she looked up. "You know what this is? This is pre-standardization spellwork. These notes are older than the curriculum."
"And someone kept them," Callum said.
She tapped the name at the bottom of the page. "hunt. This name appears three times."
"That name sounds familiar."
Nora nodded. "Magister Elwin hunt. He's on the Council of Proper Arcana. Oversees the regulation of educational spellwork."
"Someone tried to erase all this," she said. "But they missed this room. Or left it."
They sat there, reading.
Neither of them knew it yet, but that was the night everything began to shift.