Chapter 1
The girl did not know how long she had been standing in the garden.
The flowers around her were strange, black roses with silver veins and lilies that opened only when the clouds covered the sun. Ancient stone statues watched from every corner, their faces worn smooth by centuries of rain.
She had never seen this place before.
More importantly, she had no idea how she had arrived.
A young man stood a few steps away. He looked about her age, perhaps nineteen. His dark coat was embroidered with symbols that shifted whenever she tried to focus on them. His silver hair moved gently in a wind she could not feel.
He held out an envelope.
It was deep purple, almost black, with silver writing that glowed faintly across the front.
There was no name.
No address.
Just a single sentence.
The College has finally found you.
The girl stared at it.
“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
The young man blinked.
“No,” he said quietly. “That would be impossible.”
“I never applied to any college.”
“You couldn’t have.”
She frowned.
“What does that mean?”
He looked at her with an expression she could not understand. It was not pity.
It was fear.
“You have no records,” he said. “No birth certificate. No magical signature. No family registry. No school history. According to every archive in the world...”
He hesitated.
“...you do not exist.”
The garden suddenly felt colder.
She laughed nervously.
“That’s ridiculous.”
The young man handed her the envelope.
The moment her fingers touched the purple paper, silver light spread across its surface.
Words appeared.
Admitted by order of the Thirteen Headmasters.
Candidate Number: Zero.
Her heart skipped a beat.
“What is Candidate Zero?”
The young man’s face turned pale.
“I was hoping,” he whispered, “that you would tell me.”
A bell echoed through the garden.
One deep note.
Then another.
The statues around them slowly turned their heads.
The young man looked toward the distant towers of the college.
“They know you’ve accepted.”
“But I haven’t.”
He looked back at her.
The silver letters on the envelope changed once more.
Acceptance confirmed.
The girl dropped it.
The envelope did not fall.
It floated between them.
And for the first time in a thousand years, the gates of the world’s greatest magic and occult college began to open.
