When The Moon Hides Her Crown novel Chapter 83

Chapter 83 Halls Of Records

RONAN

The Academy’s stone corridors were quict.

The sun was setting, shadows stretched like claws over the marble floor. I moved with them, melting into their cover as I rounded the outer wall of the east wing.

The Hall of Records stood like a relic from another era, a squat tower tucked into the back of the Academy’s grounds, mostly ignored except during the start or end of the year. No guards. No patrols. Just a rusted latch on a side window half–hidden behind ivy. Though it was still a forbidden area.

I tested the latch. Still loose from the last time I visited under less…sanctioned circumstances.

It gave way with a soft creak.

Slipping inside, I landed soundlessly on the floor, crouched low, eyes sweeping the darkness. The scent of old parchment, dust, and ink hung in the air. Wooden filing cabinets lined the walls, drawers labeled by region, bloodline, rank.

And someone was already here.

A figure stood near the central desk, hunched over a file illuminated by a lantern’s soft glow.

I stepped forward, slow and controlled, my eyes outlining the familiar figure until his face revealed to me.

Finn.

He lifted his gaze…unsurprised.

We stared at each other for a beat, the kind of silence that crackled.

Then he held the file out to me.

“You’re here for this, right?” he asked, tone quiet, neutral. I glanced at the file containing Ryker’s information then back at

him.

I didn’t reach for the file.

Instead, I asked, “Why are you here?”

“For the same reason you are here,” he calmly murmured.

My reason? All of my reasons and mind centered on Seraphina and he said our reasons were the same? My gaze hardened. “You shouldn’t be here. Stay out of things that don’t concern you.”

Finn dida’t blink. “If you’re talking about Seth, then you’re wrong. As a friend, he does concern me.”

I stepped closer, enough so that the lantern light caught the edge of my gaze “You sure it’s just friendship and nothing more?”

His calm shattered, just a flicker. But I caught in

“The same kind of friendship that Seth has in his mind for you?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

His jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed. But he didn’t answer fast enough

“Becine,” I murmured, voice like ice as I finally plucked the file from his grasp, “what I heard from the curse that took you over during the Trial what the curse screamed before the madness fully took you. “I tilted my head, watching his pulse

his neck. “What you have in mind for Seth Darven is anything but friendship”

A dead silence fell in the room as I studied his expression.

Was guilt or fear, no definitely not fear. Something ebe tightened his features for a moment. Then he stepped back, his boots sruthing hightly against the stone

Without a word, he turned, walked to the same window he’d clearly entered through…and disappeared into the night.

My wolf growled in my mind. “We should have heard ALL his secrets and thoughts from that evil that day.”

Suddenly a strange sound caught my ears. My eyes snapped to the window where I had come in but now a figure covered his face with the scarf slipped inside.

“I did, but his eyes were full of hesitation that was unlink

unlinke Mace.

“But what?” I demanded.

“Please look for yourself,” he hesitantly reached for the phone in his pocket and handed it over to me. The moment I looked

the photos on the screen, I was stunned.

I had asked Mace to dig up Dante’s grave on the Blackwood’s Alpha family’s easy to kill. Nor would he die easily but what lay in front of me in the photo was a Dante in the grave. His face was torn up

territory. I knew that Dante would not have been just like I saw last time and everything was the same,

Dante was dead.

But if he was really dead then…

I opened Ryker’s file with a flick of my wrist, and what I found stunned me even more. I flipped the pages and all I found was his full name. That’s it. No other information about his background.

just Ryker Wraithe. I clenched the file in my hand then glanced at the photo on the phone.

“Seraphina…

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