Sylvania || jjk

30

The meeting hall was too quiet. One of those silences that felt... loaded.

The chandeliers buzzed faintly above, their glow stretching weird, twitchy shadows across velvet curtains and too many damn bookshelves.

It looked like a haunted library that got promoted.

Around the long oak table sat professors who could literally set the room on fire if they sneezed too hard—but somehow all of them looked deeply, academically awkward.

At the head, of course, was Harley.

Unbothered. Untouchable. Untouchably pissed?

Her eyes scanned the room like she was searching for a reason to fire someone. No one met them.

To her left, Mrs. Min looked like a cursed painting—gorgeous and vaguely terrifying. She hadn’t said a word yet, just kept tracing the rim of her goblet like she was divining the future in its edges.

And then—

"We’re seriously doing this?"

Professor Dagon, always the one to pop off first.

"So, we’re truly allowing this? Sending a mere student to the Tower of Reflection? This is not some ordinary punishment, Headmistress Harley."

"This isn’t detention," he added, louder. "This is the Tower of Reflection. That place messes with your mind. She’s just a kid."

Mrs. Min finally looked up, dead calm.

"It wasn’t our call. Sir Columbus gave the order."

And just like that, the temperature dropped.

Someone shifted in their chair. Another professor muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘of course he did.’

Dagon scoffed. "He’s not here, is he? No risk on his end."

"You wanna tell him that?" Min said quietly.

Nobody did.

Harley still hadn’t said a thing.

Until now.

"The matter is settled," she said, voice like steel wrapped in velvet. "Yoojin’s actions have consequences. Pray she learns from them."

“I’m not saying I disagree with Sir Columbus,” Professor Shin said, adjusting her glasses like they’d help her see past the discomfort in the room. “I just… question the need for something so extreme. She messed up—yes—but the Tower? That’s not a slap on the wrist. That’s a psychological punishment.”

From the far end of the table, Helena, the Charms instructor rolled her eyes so hard it was practically audible.

“Oh, come on,” she snapped, tossing her pen down. “That girl has been setting fires since day one—figuratively and literally. If she were anyone else, we wouldn’t even be having this debate. We'd have expelled her, full stop.”

There was a pause. A few professors glanced down at their hands. No one disagreed.

Helena leaned forward, voice sharper now. “You all do remember how hard her parents begged to get her in here, right? Barely scraped the fees together. She’s not untouchable, she’s just on borrowed time.”

“Lucky?” Professor Vaughn let out a low, humorless laugh, his voice a little raspier than usual. “You’re calling it lucky to be locked in a room with your own demons until they chew through your sanity?”

The room fell still again. Even the fire crackling in the hearth sounded quieter.

Everyone knew the Tower wasn’t detention. It was a mirror, a prison, a punishment so clean it didn’t leave bruises—just scars no one could see.