The Founders' List

At Aldercrest Academy, every name carries a legacy-and every legacy hides a debt.

Scholarship senior Nia Bennett arrives at Aldercrest determined to earn the future her mother was denied. She expects demanding classes, impossible traditions, and classmates born into families powerful enough to shape the rules.

She does not expect anonymous messages from the Bell Tower.

The messages lead Nia to missing disciplinary records, a sealed chamber, and the Founders' List-an archive of misconduct the academy has spent generations concealing. At its center is the scandal that destroyed her mother eighteen years earlier.

Julian Vale has inherited one of Aldercrest's most influential names. Helping Nia could expose his family, ruin his future, and reveal how much his parents sacrificed to keep the truth buried. Yet walking away from her may cost him something far greater.

As alliances fracture and another student disappears, Nia must decide whom she can trust. The closer she comes to exposing Aldercrest, the more dangerous the academy becomes-and the more she realizes the list contains victims as well as perpetrators.

Some names were protected.

Some were erased.

And some secrets will bring the whole institution down.

The Founders' List is an atmospheric dark-academia novel of ambition, inherited privilege, forbidden romance, family betrayal, and the courage required to tell the truth when silence is rewarded.