Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby!

Mara folded her arms. "Next time, don't."

She didn't need to elaborate. Her meaning was clear as ever stop playing nice. Stop pretending you're normal. Stop holding back.

I met her gaze, saw the flicker of worry beneath the command. And I nodded.

But before I could get lost in the weight of that moment, a sharp whisper echoed from behind me.

"Elyzara," Aria hissed. She was halfway down the east corridor, arms waving in a flurry of excitement and panic, her hair in wild disarray, glasses slightly askew.

"What now?" Riven groaned, peeling himself off the fence with a dramatic sigh. "Did someone misfile a scroll again? We're calling that a crisis now?"

Aria didn't wait. "It's the library. I found something."

I blinked. "You were in the library during duel day?"

"I was avoiding the sun and people who might set things on fire," she snapped, then paused. "Which includes you, by the way."

I shrugged. Fair.

"I think there's a passage," she continued breathlessly. "A hidden one. I leaned too far back in the astrology section and the shelf moved."

Velka, who had been brushing flecks of dust from her sleeves with the detached air of someone who believed libraries were for the tragically unambitious, frowned slightly. "That wing is restricted."

"Exactly," Aria said, eyes gleaming. "And I think someone's been using it."

That got our attention.

Five minutes later, we were sneaking into the eastern wing of the library, long after curfew, cloaked by the silence of evening and the thinnest excuse of a group "study session." The air smelled of old parchment and dust, the stone beneath our feet cool and uneven. Lanterns dimmed at this hour, casting long shadows between the towering shelves.

"This is a bad idea," Velka muttered.

"Says the girl with vampire night vision," I retorted. "You'll be fine."

"I meant for the rest of you."

Riven smirked. "Oh, she likes us. She's worried."

Velka didn't answer, which I decided was a yes.

Aria led us to the back corner of the astrology wing, where the ceiling sloped oddly and the scent of mildew was a bit too strong. She pointed to a faded section of the wall behind a shelf marked Celestial Anomalies: 327 B.E. to 91 A.R.

"I leaned here," she whispered, pressing her palm against the worn panel.

Nothing.

Then, slowly, a click echoed softly, and the bookshelf trembled. A section of it creaked inward, revealing a narrow stone passage beyond.

The scent hit us instantly cold, old air, thick with damp and something faintly metallic. Blood? Mold? Magic?

"I regret everything," Riven said cheerfully, and stepped in first.

The passage sloped downward, lit only by faint glyphs carved into the walls. The air grew colder with every step, silence pressing against our ears like water.

"Where do you think this leads?" Aria whispered.

"Nowhere good," Velka answered. "But you're all too curious to stop."

She wasn't wrong.

We reached the end of the corridor minutes later, breath fogging faintly in the chill. A wooden door stood crooked in its frame, runes etched into its surface faded and cracked. It looked… old. Uncared for. Forgotten.

But someone had been here recently scuff marks near the bottom, a broken piece of chalk lying abandoned in the corner.

We pushed the door open.

The room beyond was small and circular, lit only by the flickering blue of ancient protective wards, most long dead. Shelves lined the walls, their contents half-crushed beneath years of rot and weight. A stone desk stood at the center, one leg broken, ink stains spreading like old bruises across its surface.

And on the desk lay a journal.

It was bound in dark leather, nearly black, the edges worn smooth by use. Riven picked it up carefully, flipping it open.

"The handwriting's cramped," he muttered. "And terrible."

I peered over his shoulder. The first page was scrawled hastily, the ink smudged as though the writer had been trembling.

"If you find this, it means I failed. There are things below the Arcanum things we sealed, not destroyed. Rituals still echo in the deepest vaults. Some students have gone missing. Some teachers, too. They won't admit it. They won't stop it. I tried."

Velka read over my other shoulder. "It's signed… Professor Aldren."

I frowned. "Aldren? That name's not on any faculty list."

"Because he vanished ten years ago," Aria whispered, wide-eyed. "There's no record of where he went."

We exchanged a look. No one had to say it we'd found something very wrong.

Riven flipped to the last page, but half the ink was gone, like it had been burned away.

Only one phrase remained legible, carved deep into the parchment like the writer had scratched it in with their fingernail.

"The blood door waits."

A silence fell over the room, heavy and cold.

Velka stepped back. "We shouldn't stay here."

Riven closed the journal slowly. "I vote we pretend this was a bad dream."

"I vote we investigate," I said quietly.

They all stared at me.

"Obviously not tonight," I added. "But this… this is connected. The wards. The rituals. The disappearances."

Velka's eyes narrowed. "And the message you got."

I stiffened.

She noticed.

"You think I don't know someone warned you? 'Don't come back' is a very specific phrase."

I didn't respond. But I didn't have to.

"I'm in," Velka said finally, folding her arms. "Not because I care. But because this school is my new home, and I'd rather not be consumed by ritual-based architecture, thank you."

"Same," Aria whispered, clutching the journal.

Riven raised a hand. "Quick question. What exactly is a blood door?"

We all stared at him.

"Great," he muttered. "Love that no one knows."

But none of us moved.

The air in the little chamber hung heavy, too dense to breathe comfortably, too still to be natural. The kind of silence that feels like it's listening. Watching. Waiting.

So, of course, we stayed.

Riven wandered to a crooked shelf, poking at crumbling scrolls and whispering a steady stream of sarcastic commentary under his breath—mostly to himself, possibly to the ghosts. Aria had perched on the edge of the broken desk, gingerly flipping through the journal again by the light of her spell, brows furrowed in concern.

I stayed near Velka.

Not intentionally. Just… coincidentally.

She was studying one of the runes carved into the wall, her fingers trailing just above the stone, not touching, but close enough that I could feel the static hum of the residual magic pulsing through it. Her face was unusually serious—less haughty, more thoughtful. Focused.

"They used containment magic," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Old. Deteriorated. But layered. Whatever they sealed in here… they were scared of it."

Her voice didn't waver. She wasn't afraid.

I found that oddly reassuring.

"You're good at this," I said quietly, before I realized I'd actually said it out loud.

Velka blinked, her expression shifting ever so slightly. A small pause.

"Of course I am," she said, but her voice was softer than usual. Almost... embarrassed.

A beat passed.

Then she added, "You're not terrible either."

I blinked.

"Well," I said slowly, "thank you for that deeply moving compliment."

"You're welcome, princesse in cage."

I rolled my eyes. "Still holding onto that, huh?"

Velka glanced at me just a flicker, a sideways look. Her lips curved faintly.

"It suits you less these days."

My breath caught. Just a second. Just long enough to make me wonder what she really meant.

And then Riven ruined it.

"Hey!" he shouted from the far end of the room. "Found a box of bones!"

Velka and I stepped back, just a little.

Not too far.