Cat hadn’t seen Max in weeks. Cat figured that she had been expelled somehow or maybe she had just left the college after the first two weeks without any word from her friend and roommate. After a month, she hoped that her friend hadn’t been arrested or imprisoned for what she had done at the Winter Formal. Little information was shared with the scholars and college at large about what had happened that night. The dean had completely disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again following Cat’s exit from the Great Hall. His twin brother from St. Joseph’s had assumed oversight of St. Mary’s until another dean could assume the role for the women’s college. The scholars were informed that the dean had taken a permanent leave of absence, though the patrons remained as present and oppressive as ever. The interim twin dean was largely absent from St. Mary’s college. The occasional message or announcement would be made from St. Joseph’s to the ladies who studied on the other side of the All Saints campuses, but he was otherwise rarely seen. His involvement with St. Mary’s was largely hands off. Despite the lack of the dean’s oppressive presence, Cat heard rumors of random punishments and purity tests carried out by the patrons with unruly or insolent scholars who had assumed these practices would quickly become a thing of the past without the dean’s oversight over the processes.

Cat breezed through the rest of the semester. Without her private studies with the dean, her courses felt practically effortless. She was monitored constantly by her patron, but without Max around, her days were incredibly mundane and she kept herself out of trouble. She’d had enough excitement for a lifetime over the course of her freshman year and committed herself fully to her studies and homework. She never once deviated from her daily routine of breakfast, classes, lunch, studying, dinner, and in the evening she would sequester herself alone in her dorm room - continuing her studying. The secret trap doors in the room remained locked - she’d tried one of them about a month following the Winter Formal - curious if she could sneak in and access the tunnels to see if Max had disappeared below the college. Access was impossible.

On a rainy day in June, Cat sat down to eat dinner as she always did and noticed the angular corner of a white envelope sticking out from the edge of her dinner plate. Her heart immediately leapt into her throat and she looked to her surroundings, suddenly panicked and sweaty. Nothing good had ever come from secret envelopes deposited under her place settings at mealtimes. She didn’t notice any of her housemates with similar notecards hidden under their plates… She waited until her patron had floated away down the table to quickly, as furtively and secretively as possible, slip the envelope out from under the plate and tuck it into the waistband of her skirt. She didn’t dare give it a second look. She’d escaped scrutiny and punishment for weeks, she wasn’t about to bring it upon herself now.

Cat returned directly to her dorm room following dinner. She threw the extra deadbolt lock that Max had secretly installed on the door as soon as she had sequestered herself inside. She extricated the envelope from the waistband of her skirt, heart pounding in her throat. The envelope was completely blank and incredibly lightweight. It didn’t even feel like there was anything inside. She went to her bed and opened the envelope… Nothing? Her heart thudded even harder. Why would someone go through the trouble of leaving an empty envelope under her dinner plate?! What kind of weird joke was this?! She pulled open the envelope further and realized it wasn’t empty. Taped to the bottom crease was a thin, pin-like key with a number barely legible in pencil.

“What the…” Cat scraped the key out with her fingernail and held it up to the light. She’d never seen anything like it. It was barbed on one end and sharp enough to stick into her clothing - she assumed she could probably pierce her skin with it if she wasn’t careful. The other end was curled around in a swirl of a loop. It had no weight to it whatsoever, but was somehow completely rigid and impossible to bend. She peeled apart the envelope and committed the number scrawled inside to memory. She sat in contemplative silence for long minutes. Without instruction or further information, she had no idea what to do with what she had been given. She’d stayed out of trouble for weeks now - what if this was a trap? What if she had somehow just been given special access to the dean… Assuming he was still alive somewhere…

After an hour of complicated indecision, Cat took the key pin and went into her closet. It couldn’t hurt to try the trap door. Presumably if she had been given a secret key without further information, it would be to a door that she had unrestricted access to. The keyhole to the door was far too large for the pin in her hand, but she slipped the thin pin of metal into the slot and pushed it up. Nothing. She tried again, pushing in and down. Nothing. Her heart started to beat a little faster. If the key wasn’t for this door… She tried again, jerking the pin to the left. Still nothing. One final time, the only other direction she could try and suddenly, she heard a soft click and the door cracked open. She audibly gasped as she softly pushed the door open and the rush of humid, spring-like air came whooshing through the door from the tunnel beyond. She pinned the key into the hem of her shirt at her wrist and stepped into the realm of the All Saints network where she had previously hoped to never set foot again.