Ava's notebook acquired a title during the fourth week of term. She did not announce this. Harper discovered it by picking up the notebook and reading the cover aloud.

"MAP OF THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN."

Ava took it back. "Do not read my things."

"You wrote the title on the outside."

"That does not make it public."

"It makes it extremely readable."

Jasper was on the floor trying to build a tower from picture cards using only levitation. His concentration failed halfway through Harper's argument and the whole structure collapsed.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Ava placed the notebook on the desk, hesitated, then opened it herself. The first page held dates and times. Ocean Studies: abnormal flattening of swell, followed by higher second swell. Founders' Courtyard: Jasper reported pressure, no visible marine change. West Stair: brief possible pressure after Harper slipped. Unconfirmed. Harper pointed at the last line. "You documented me nearly falling down three steps."

"It happened at the same time as something Jasper noticed."

"This is surveillance."

"You told me the story twice."

Jasper picked up his cards. "What are you trying to prove?" Ava frowned at the page. "Nothing yet. That's the point." That answer sounded more mature than Jasper expected from someone who labelled socks.

Ava had spent the previous week searching allowed Academy sources. Most unusual coastal records were ordinary once examined properly: storms, equipment faults, misreported tides, students exaggerating events years later. Then she found a reference to something called the Deepwater Event.

"Twenty-three years ago," she said. "The Academy changed lower-coast supervision rules after it."

Jasper stopped stacking cards. "What happened?"

"The history doesn't say."

Harper collapsed onto Bag Bed. "Useless history." Ava looked offended on behalf of the profession. "It says the lower docks closed for twelve days and several cliff boundaries were changed."

"Why?"

"It doesn't say."

Harper pointed at her. "You see the problem." They went to the library the following afternoon. Soren was already there behind a stack of books tall enough to count as architecture. When Harper asked whether he had found anything about Deepwater, he blinked at them for a moment and then pulled an Academy chronology from the bottom of the stack. The entry occupied two lines. Deepwater Event. Lower dock closure for twelve days. Revised cliff and marine safety standards introduced. That was all.

"The goat gets more than this," Harper said.

Jasper looked up. "What goat?" Soren slid another book across the table. A famous incident in the 1980s involved a goat appearing inside a third-floor classroom.

"Two paragraphs," Soren said.

Harper looked personally insulted. "Something closes the docks for twelve days and gets two lines, but a goat gets two paragraphs?"

"The goat broke a window," Soren said.

"I support the goat, but still."

Ava found a later safety report that mentioned Deepwater without explanation. Jasper searched the index of an older Tidefall history and found only a cross-reference to restricted archives. The missing information became interesting in itself. Professor Elowen appeared between the shelves while all four students were leaning over the same book. They froze with such coordination that guilt was immediately obvious. Elowen glanced at the open chronology. "Curiosity is encouraged here." Harper relaxed.

"Patience," Elowen added, "is also useful."

Harper tensed again. Ava asked, "Are we allowed to read this?"

"Of course. But records without context are excellent at producing stories people later mistake for facts." Elowen tapped the goat account. "For instance, this claims the animal entered through a third-floor window."

Soren frowned. "It didn't?"

"Someone carried it upstairs."

Harper's eyes lit up. "Who?"

"That is not today's lesson."

"It should be."

Elowen smiled despite herself and walked away. The next morning they asked her directly about Deepwater. Her answer was careful.

"A student was injured after another student attempted to influence unusual marine magic they did not understand. The Academy changed several rules afterward."

Jasper felt the words settle uncomfortably.

"Influence how?"

"The surviving records disagree. Some are later accounts. Some are partial translations from older Selari documents that were already being studied at the time."

Ava leaned forward. "Did the student cause the sea to move?" Professor Elowen paused.

"The student believed they could."

Jasper noticed the difference at once.

"Could they?"

"That," Elowen said, "is exactly the question people answered too confidently."

The lesson bell rang before anyone could ask more. Ava added the sentence to her notebook that afternoon. The student believed they could. Jasper read it several times. His dream had never felt as though he were controlling anything. The presence had answered, yes, but an answer was not obedience.

The library search also introduced them to the limits of public records. Ava discovered that Tidefall did not have one single perfect archive. Some materials had been digitised. Others existed only as paper, translated copies or references in books written decades later. Dates disagreed. Names changed spelling. Old Selari terms had several competing English translations. Soren seemed to enjoy this rather than finding it frustrating.

"It means you have to compare," he said.

Harper stared at him. "You say that as if it is good news."

"It is."

Ava nodded. "It is." Harper looked at Jasper. "We've lost her." The Deepwater gaps became more suspicious only after they understood how ordinary gaps looked. A missing cafeteria menu from twenty years ago meant nothing. A major safety revision referenced in three later policies but described nowhere in accessible detail meant something, though not necessarily conspiracy. When Professor Elowen explained that privacy rules covered the people involved, Ava wrote a note in the margin: MISSING ≠ HIDDEN FOR BAD REASON. Jasper liked that. It prevented the mystery from becoming an excuse to distrust everybody.

At the same time, the Selari fragment from the lower door gave them a second line of investigation that belonged to history rather than private lives. The old phrase about waiting where water passed appeared in a catalogue of early coastal warnings. Several similar inscriptions existed around ancient Tidefall structures. Whatever Deepwater had been, people had been cautious around unusual water long before it happened. He found himself thinking about that distinction long after the room lights went out.