On a stormy Monday at an old school, Zosia and her friends discover a hidden room, three marked masks, and a message that gives them seven days to uncover their powers.
Zosia had never trusted Mondays, and this one felt worse than usual.
All night, the wind had battered the windows of the old school, rattling the panes like impatient fingers. By morning, she arrived with a head full of tangled dreams and a school bag slung over one shoulder, wishing the building did not look quite so much like a castle with secrets.
Under the staircase, Paul and Klara were already waiting. They were bent close together, whispering so fast that their words blurred into one excited hiss.
"You have to see what we found," Klara said, grabbing Zosia by the sleeve before she could ask a single question.
Paul said nothing. He looked pale, almost see-through, and kept pressing one hand against his pocket as if he was afraid the thing inside might leap out on its own.
Zosia pushed her glasses higher on her nose and hurried after them. They ducked past a leaning broom and slipped down into the cellar, where the air smelled of dust, damp stone, and old paint. At first she thought they had brought her to the wrong place. Then she saw it.
In the wall beside the heating pipes, where there had always been nothing but cracked plaster, a door had appeared. It was so smooth and plain that it seemed to swallow the dim light around it.
"We didn't notice it yesterday," Paul whispered.
He pulled out a small, shiny key. His fingers were shaking so hard that Zosia could hear the metal clink against his knuckles. He slid it into the lock and turned it.
The door creaked open.
Inside was a round room no bigger than their classroom closet, lit by a single pale lamp. In the middle stood an old table. On it lay three paper masks, folded carefully as if someone had been waiting a very long time for them to arrive.
Each mask had a name written beneath it.
Zosia.
Paul.
Klara.
She stared at the names, then at her friends.
"Is this for us?" she asked.
Before anyone could answer, the lamp above them flashed brighter. Letters crawled across the wall, one by one, in sharp black lines:
SELECTED. YOU HAVE 7 DAYS TO DISCOVER YOUR POWER.
Zosia's breath caught. Her skin prickled, and the room seemed to shrink around them. Seven days to discover what? And how was a school supposed to know their names?
Then the door slid shut behind them with a soft, final click.