Chapter 63
She quickly glanced at Xerath, her teacher who was unawarely writing something, her fair face almost transparent due to the bright light, a few strands of pale golden hair falling from her temples, casually disturbed the light that passed through them.
Xerath suddenly looked up, and Sylas's gaze was caught off guard by the bright silver flames. Xerath questioned her with her eyes, and Sylas pointed at the clock.
It was already 10:30, and Xerath said to her, "Go to bed first."
Sylas had to go to sleep first, Xerath will definitely come back very late.
She lay in bed, unsure of when Xerath would go to sleep, but the reply was already written. She told her friends about the speculations connected to the two mysterious authors and pointed out that there was indeed a wizard named Biatris.
However, she also guessed her friends' reaction: most likely they wouldn't believe it, because Biatris wasn't actually on that list...
Sylas suddenly woke up without any warning, looked out the window, and saw that the sky was still full of stars, a rare clear day with no storm or mysterious dark clouds. She thought about the mysterious authors and Biatris, jumped out of bed all of a sudden, pushed open the door, and went downstairs to the library.
She pushed open the library door, and the light shone directly on her face, catching her by surprise.
She was startled, but then she took a closer look and there was no sign of Xerath in the library. She must be nearby, so the library lights hadn't been turned off. Maybe she had just stepped out for a moment... But where did she go? Sylas bravely walked in, and her slippers made a "squeak" sound on the shiny floor.
She didn't know what spell had befallen her or what temptation she had succumbed to, but she walked over to Xerath's desk and sat down. She slowly caressed the armrests of the chair that Xerath had polished to a glow and stared blankly at her own desk.
Suddenly, Xerath peeked out from behind a bookshelf. "Sylas?"
"Tea-teacher!" Sylas quickly stood up. "I-I didn't know you were here, I thought you had left."
"Of course not, can't sleep?"
"Hmm... um... right, you haven't slept either, have you?"
Xerath walked towards her, took hold of her tightly clasped hands, and frowned, saying, "You're so cold. How long have you been out here?"
"Not... not long."
Xerath took off her robe and draped it over her, holding her shoulders and saying, "Don't just sit here daydreaming, let's go back to the room."
Sylas obediently let her embrace her and they walked downstairs.
She had planned to look up Biatris' articles in the index tonight, but she couldn't do it right under Xerath's nose, could she?
Xerath lifted the covers, let her lay inside, tucked her in and even reached out to touch her for a moment. "Don't you feel how cold it is outside?" she smiled and said, "Go to sleep." She leaned down and kissed Sylas's forehead.
"Teacher..."
"What's wrong? Can't sleep?"
Sylas shook her head and her emerald green eyes gently fell on Xerath's face. "Teacher, why aren't you sleeping? Lately, you've been falling asleep every afternoon, just sleeping on the chair. It can't be comfortable, right? Since that's the case, why not go to bed early at night and do your work in the afternoon?"
Xerath turned her eyes without saying anything.
Sylas sat up and grabbed the hem of Xerath's clothes. "If you can't sleep, I can accompany you to sleep."
"I'm not... I'm just..."
"Even though you said that today's tasks should be completed today, I think it's more important to have a plan, right?"
Xerath smiled lightly, kissed her forehead, and said, "The side effects of teaching you how to argue are becoming more and more apparent. I'm going to sleep now, don't worry."
Sylas pouted and said, "I'm more worried. What if you're not telling the truth?"
Xerath became a bit interested and asked back, "So what do you plan to do?"
"Hmm..." Sylas suddenly asked with a smile, "How about I walk you back to your room?"
Xerath laughed and kissed her forehead again, "No need, I really will go back to sleep, trust me."
Sylas had no choice but to let go of her and watched her leave her room.
But today, Xerath kissed her three times! Sylas was overwhelmed by such a big gift and lay in bed, feeling dizzy and rolled on the pillow with her eyes closed, completely forgetting about Biatris.
The next day at noon, she realized she dug a hole for herself because Xerath didn't take a nap. She couldn't secretly do things that the teacher shouldn't know, so she sat in her seat and tried to practice writing on a scroll (of course, on regular paper).
And her teacher, for some unknown reason, always had a mysterious smile on his lips. She didn't know what he was writing.
Maybe he was replying, but Xerath was someone who only smiled when writing papers. This reasoning made Sylas feel a little uneasy. To forget about this, she reviewed the information about Biatris Windcaller and wrote it on the paper.
She will not fail tonight! She got up in the middle of the night, sneaked into the library, and secretly took the index back to her room. In the flickering light of a beetle, she copied all the published paper titles by Biatris, planning to provide them to her friends so they could compare the similarities and differences between Biatris and "B Truce."
The plan went smoothly. She sent the letter the next day and received a reply over the weekend.
Sylas herself received only bad news: In all the magazines at home, there was not a single article written by Beatrice as the first author that was related to "Endless Water Realm". It seemed that, in order to match her surname, almost all of her articles were about researching wind element spells and theories.
On the other hand, there was bad news from the Rost Family twins as well: Beatrice's keywords and "B Truce" were completely different, and they were also different from "Aiselte Aibi".
This clue was broken, which made Sylas very annoyed. Maybe she should check if there were any other clues hidden at home while sweeping the floor.
But there was still one sentence at the end of the letter, written after the signature, which indicated that it was added in a hurry.
"You should look at the co-authors. In fact, after the holiday, we both returned to the boarding school, so we could only receive letters when we went home on weekends. We will verify in the school library, but I think it should be convenient for you to look for yourself over there. Caroline."
Sylas quickly opened her notebook, where she had already written a lot of notes about "Endless Water Realm", including an introduction to "Endless Water Realm Fantasy" and various speculations about B Truce. She even drew a cross to indicate the dead-end clue behind the association with the name Beatrice.
Now she had a new clue, so she had to secretly take the index out again in the middle of the night, without letting Xerath know, and found all the articles with Beatrice's signature, and added the co-authors behind them.
She saw several familiar names: her teacher Xerath, Diego Westcounty who Xerath often corresponded with in letters, second senior brother Benson Morningstar whom Xerath had mentioned before, a senior sister Sashara Canyon, and two other familiar names that she guessed were fellow disciples that Xerath didn't elaborate on.
And there was the famous Emerson teacher.
She also discovered that Xerath's last name was "Stellar," which indicated that she came from an intellectual or bureaucratic family.
But she still wanted to know more about Xerath. However, now was not the time to think about these things.
She compared these names with the "Who is B Truce" suspect list given by the Rost Family's twins, and Sashara Canyon's name was prominently listed. She was thrilled, but she couldn't understand the surname "Canyon," so she wrote it in the letter.
She also asked about the surname "Star Song." She wanted to learn about Xerath's past experiences, and perhaps using a roundabout approach would be the best: Maryland Star Song was undoubtedly a good starting point – it seemed unrelated, but involved many secrets.
Xerath was a huge mystery, far more intriguing than anything else, but everything about her was a secret. Sylas needed to learn a lot before she would have the privilege to unravel even the slightest clue.
It was still late at night as she quietly sneaked into the library and stole the index. She used the faint glow from her fingertips to illuminate the records one by one. There wasn't even a single light to accompany her. Today, there was a slight breeze outside, tearing through the sharp corners of the tower and producing a loud howling sound.
But all of this was left outside the tower; inside the library, it remained incredibly silent.
Thump.
At this moment, there should absolutely not be any sound, but this faint noise definitely didn't come from Sylas. Nothing around her would make such a sound. She wasn't wearing shoes, her books were directly resting on her lap, and she sat against a cushion placed by the wall.
"...Who!" she shouted loudly, trying to give herself courage, quickly casting a spell to surround herself with a gentle breeze. But then she realized: there could only be her and her teacher here.
"Sylas."
"T-teacher?! Why aren't you sleeping? How did you end up in the library?"
Xerath was wearing a long black robe, with only the parts of her clothing shining brightly. In the dimly lit library, she looked like a floating ghost, except for her head.
Xerath slowly approached her. Sylas, for a moment, forgot that she had come to do something wrong secretly, and instead worried about Xerath. Unable to resist, she stood up and walked towards her.
"This should be my question. What are you doing here?"
Sylas suddenly stopped walking, stuttering as she explained, "I-I-I suddenly thought of a question and couldn't sleep, so I got up to check..."
Xerath smiled lightly, "I have those moments too, you see. That's why we ran into each other." She gently took Sylas's hand and took off her own robe, placing it on Sylas's shoulders. She whispered, "Next time you come out, remember to dress warmer."
Warmth surrounded her, giving her the illusion of being gently embraced by Xerath. The smell of old parchment enveloped her, and it may be because the robe was too warm, her body quickly heated up, causing her neck to turn red, followed by her face, and finally her ears.
