Osivia fell silent, staring unblinkingly at Hoffa.

  Pointing to the Bck Lake outside the floor-to-ceiling window, Hoffa said, “I’ve always wondered why the merfolk would cut through the ice in the dead of winter. Now, I understand. The Bck Lake is the key—the bridge between reality and illusion.”

  Osivia turned away, hurrying back to her seat.

  When Hoffa thought she was about to grab the crown, she instead lifted the silver tray and shoved a sandwich into her mouth.

  She must have been starving because, finding the pace of eating inefficient, she transformed into a serpent, opened her maw wide, and swallowed all the food in one gulp.

  Watching her, Hoffa pinched his forehead, at a loss for words.

  Afterward, she used her tail to pick up the golden circlet from the floor and slithered to the small pool in the office, reverting to human form.

  “Are we going to the Bck Lake?” she asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Follow me.”

  Osivia stepped into the pool and disappeared.

  Cautiously, Hoffa approached the small pool in her office, gnced at the ke visible through the window, and guessed it must be a secret passage leading directly to the Bck Lake.

  Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the pool. With a loud whoosh in his ears, it felt like entering a water slide in an amusement park. His body twisted, spiraled, and plummeted.

  Seconds ter, he tumbled into the Bck Lake, weightless like an astronaut in space, surrounded by deep green waters.

  Fortunately, Osivia swam over swiftly, grabbed his arm, and, with powerful kicks, propelled them upward.

  The early spring ke water wasn’t much warmer than it had been during Christmas. Hoffa pinched his nose with one hand and clung to Osivia’s arm with the other. This year had him swimming more than ever before; Slytherins always seemed tied to water, something Hoffa, a Ravencw who preferred dry, cool air, found quite uncomfortable.

  Emerging from the ke, Osivia led Hoffa to a slope by the Bck Lake, dried their clothes with a spell, and stood under the bright spring moonlight.

  Hoffa pointed to the ke. “Look.”

  Osivia gazed at the ke but noticed something odd—it was unusually dark, without even a reflection of the school. The ke surface only mirrored the moon in the sky.

  “Where’s the school? Its reflection?” Osivia asked incredulously.

  “That’s the problem,” Hoffa replied, his tone tinged with excitement. “Ancient wizards’ magic wouldn’t just exist in one pce. If there’s to be a mirror world, there’s no better spot than here.”

  “But how do we get there? I know nothing about this pce.”

  Hoffa thought for a moment. An earlier encounter came to mind, and he gestured for Osivia to follow him.

  Under the pale moonlight of early spring, they walked together. Snowmelt exposed dry twigs that cracked underfoot, the snapping sounds echoing in the still night. Their elongated shadows stretched across the ground.

  Eventually, they arrived at a stone beach far from the castle.

  From here, they could see the train station in the distance, along with an old-fashioned train waiting at the ptform. It was the school train, set to evacuate all students two days ter.

  Standing on the stone beach under the cold, clear moonlight, the stones at their feet seemed to glisten with a silvery frost.

  Hoffa, looking at the pitch-bck ke, spoke softly, “I’ve been here before. On my first day, when I was on the train, I inexplicably ended up in this pce. At the time, I saw the undercarriage of a passing train here. My two friends said it was a dream or a hallucination.

  “But now, I think it was neither a hallucination nor a dream.”

  Osivia frowned. “What exactly are you talking about?”

  Just as she finished speaking, a spsh echoed from the distant ke. A blurry figure emerged from the water and hovered above the surface, staring at Hoffa and beckoning to him.

  After exchanging a gnce, Hoffa and Osivia cautiously waded forward across the stone beach.

  Cold water quickly engulfed Hoffa’s feet, then his knees, then his waist. Walking on uneven pebbles with one hand skimming the ke surface, he finally stopped.

  The figure before him was familiar—a mermaid with chestnut hair, a delicate and alluring face, star-like sparkles on her chest, and a massive fish tail beneath the water.

  It was the same young mermaid he had seen a month earlier, seemingly drawn by some kind of summons.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, just as she had the st time.

  But this time, Hoffa understood her meaning. This was akin to a transport like the Vanity Dolphins. So he asked, “Can you take us there?”

  “I can, but I need a payment,” the mermaid said in her ethereal voice.

  “What payment?” Osivia asked. “Do you want us to praise you?”

  The mermaid shook her head, her gaze fixed on Hoffa.

  “Keys, right?” Hoffa pulled out the bracelet and the coin.

  “Wealth, fame... one more thing.”

  The mermaid’s hauntingly melodic voice echoed.

  Osivia produced the crown. “Power.”

  The mermaid’s gaze lingered on the crown for a moment. Her slender, pale arms emerged from the water and extended toward Hoffa, her posture akin to a queen awaiting coronation.

  Hoffa gnced at the crown in Osivia’s hand, took it, and pced it on the mermaid’s head. Then he slid the bracelet onto her delicate wrist and pced the coin in her palm.

  Under the dark moonlight, a silent ceremony concluded.

  The mermaid, satisfied with her three gifts, nodded and grabbed Hoffa’s hand with one of her own and Osivia’s with the other.

  “Take a deep breath,” she said.

  “Wait,” Hoffa interjected.

  “What is it?” the mermaid asked.

  Hoffa turned to Osivia, his expression serious. “Last time, you were reckless like a kamikaze pilot. Are you pnning to be just as crazy this time?”

  Osivia froze, then pressed her lips together as if tasting something exceedingly bitter.

  She remained silent for so long that the crowned mermaid began to frown impatiently.

  “Osivia?” Hoffa prompted.

  “Hoffa,” she finally said earnestly, “I’m sorry. Over these past months, I’ve been a terrible friend—selfish and harmful to you more than once.”

  She raised her head, her voice resolute. “But if I can, I’d like to make amends.”

  Hoffa bent over, covering his mouth with his hand.

  "Wow, you can actually say something so sentimental—I’m about to throw up," he said as he straightened up and stuck his tongue out at the ke spirit.

  "Take us away. I think I might need some cold water to clear my head."

  The ke spirit smiled faintly and leaned back.

  Instantly, both of them were pulled into the ke.

  The icy water engulfed them as the ke spirit’s massive tail propelled them downward. In moments, they were dozens of meters deep, surrounded by an eerie, oppressive silence and the dark pressure of the water. Small bubbles escaped from Hoffa’s mouth as he gazed down at the pitch-bck abyss below him, strangely unbothered by the water pressure.

  He turned to look back and saw the ke spirit’s enormous tail swishing in the water above him.

  Wait, above him?

  Maybe not.

  Hoffa’s entire world flipped—or perhaps, it was the world itself that turned upside down.

  Suddenly, he was no longer descending. He was rising—swiftly and decisively.

  A glimmer of light appeared in the dark void ahead, a faint but shining beacon.

  The light grew rger and brighter.

  Spsh!

  With a loud burst of water, the ke spirit emerged from the surface with the two of them in tow and released her grip.

  Hoffa gnced around, utterly stunned by the scene before him.

  The ke water here wasn’t bck but shimmered with a misty, dazzling whiteness. Above them, the bright starlight was visible, but the moon was nowhere to be seen.

  All around them was a haze of water vapor, limiting visibility to less than twenty meters.

  Hoffa realized he had arrived at another yer of Hogwarts—a mirrored version of the school.

  "Be careful. He’s back," the ke spirit said softly. With that, she turned, flicked her tail to send up a great spray of water, and vanished beneath the crystalline, pale ke.

  Hoffa and Olsivia exchanged a gnce before cautiously paddling forward. Although Hoffa couldn’t swim, the water seemed to hold him afloat with some strange magical force.

  Before long, Hoffa’s fingers brushed against something hard. Peering closer, he saw he had touched something long, bck, rigid, and unyielding.

  It was a straight iron track.

  Stretching across the water, it led from an unknown origin to an unknown destination—the same track he had seen in that inexplicable vision at the start of the school year.

  He touched the track and exchanged another look with Olsivia.

  The two of them climbed onto the track and began to move forward, slowly and cautiously. At that moment, Hoffa felt as though he had been transported back to the beginning of the school year.

  He stood on a massive, mirrored surface, with ripples beneath his feet reflecting the railway.

  Neither of them spoke. Wearing solemn expressions, they walked forward along the track.

  Before long, they spotted a dark train car looming silently above the water.

  Beneath the train car was a surface of luminous white stones that resembled milky-white crystals. These heavy, pristine stones formed a ptform-like structure.

  "By Merlin’s beard," Olsivia murmured in awe. "This definitely wasn’t built by ancient wizards."

  Hoffa didn’t respond. He tiptoed closer and peeked inside the train car, finding it completely empty.

  “Phew.”

  He let out a breath, wiping his sweaty palms on his wizard’s robe. Then he pulled out his wand and withdrew his head.

  As he stepped back out of the train car, Olsivia tapped his shoulder and pointed ahead.

  "Hoffa, look."

  Following her gaze, Hoffa spotted a row of dark lines looming through the misty vapor.

  When they approached, they gasped sharply, realizing those lines weren’t lines at all but a dense crowd of figures.

  Dark figures.

  These figures were naked, motionless, and devoid of breath.

  They hung their heads low, their bodies covered in pure bck metal. They were an enormous group of constructs.

  Kneeling on one knee over the white water’s surface, they faced a singur direction as if in a state of reverent worship.

  "So this is where they’ve been hiding. No wonder no one could ever find them," Hoffa muttered under his breath.

  Olsivia grabbed Hoffa’s arm and stepped in front of him. "Careful."

  The two remained on guard for a long time, but the constructs remained motionless, as lifeless as statues.

  Hoffa’s gaze followed the direction in which the constructs were kneeling—a tall white isnd at the center of the shimmering ke.

  They climbed from the tracks onto the radiant white isnd, where water droplets slid off their bodies.

  The isnd wasn’t rge, roughly thirty square meters, and it was filled with milky-white crystals. Surrounding the crystals were four towering statues, each ten meters high.

  Hoffa immediately recognized them.

  Godric Gryffindor, holding a sword.

  Sazar Slytherin, holding a jewel.

  Helga Hufflepuff, holding a wand.

  Rowena Ravencw, holding a scale.

  Each statue gazed sternly and gravely toward the center of the isnd.

  There, Hoffa saw a tall white ptform, beneath which were piled countless books and scrolls.

  Hoffa and Olsivia shared another gnce, her face as pale as his.

  Slowly, they moved closer.

  Hoffa randomly picked up a book. Its title read: Eternal Life: Bloodline Transformation.

  Opening it, he was greeted by intricate, sinister red magic circles. The entire book was written in archaic English, in a dried blood-like color that made his skin crawl.

  He set it down and picked up another: Forbidden: Demon Transformation.

  The moment he opened it, a ghastly, grotesque image of a man’s face stared back at him. Naked, the book detailed the process of transforming a human into a demon in excruciatingly vivid detail. The sight made Hoffa’s scalp prickle.

  He set the book down, only to pick up another, and another.

  Eternal Life: Soul Splitting, Forbidden: Nightmare Shadows, Forbidden: Demon Summoning, Rebirth: Curse of the Dead, Rebirth: Corrupting Mist, Forbidden: Spirit Realm Wandering, Shadow: Funeral of the Living Wizard, Shadow: Ghostly Apparitions.

  With each book he picked up and leafed through, Hoffa climbed higher.

  The entire slope of the isnd was covered with simir texts on forbidden arts.

  The more he read, the paler his face became.

  Finally, he set down the book in his hand and joined Olsivia at the summit of the stone ptform. Looking down at the hundreds of forbidden tomes below, the dead silence around them was overwhelming.

  There was no doubt.

  The Forbidden Magic Library.

  It was here.

  This pce was a paradise for dark wizards. Any one of these books, if taken outside, could shake the modern wizarding world to its core. Who knew how much ancient, forbidden knowledge was sealed away here?

  "Where’s the Half-Blood King?" Olsivia asked weakly.

  At that moment, a calm, raspy voice sounded from behind them:

  "The four founders wanted to destroy all these forbidden texts. They believed it would end the conflicts between people. A na?ve notion. In truth, conflict is the eternal melody of humanity."

  (End of Chapter)

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