“You’re real hot shit, Logan, talking big after Henryk saved your ass,” Edward said from the side, grinning as he chuckled. “There’s even a video on YouTube about it.”

  “Oh my God, I remember that!” Violet’s voice joined in, her excitement cracking through the tension like a stone through glass. Laughter bubbled from a few others as the memory spread like wildfire.

  Logan’s smile vanished. He shot her a look sharp enough to slice.

  “Quiet, freak,” he snapped.

  “Oi,” Bryan growled, stepping forward.

  “Yeah, she was just talking,” Nick said, his voice cold, eyes locked on Logan like a wolf scenting blood. “You gonna bark at everyone now?”

  Logan’s jaw clenched, molars grinding audibly.

  “You’re lucky, Innworlder,” he hissed. “I’m sore from training. I’ll deal with you another day.”

  Bryan and Nick just smirked and waved it off, as if daring him to try.

  Jace’s eyes darkened, his glare tightening like a noose.

  “You report this to the police,” he said, low and slow, “and we haven’t even made a decision yet.” He stepped closer, chin high. “I’ll drag you into the arena myself.”

  Henryk’s eyes widened—but then, to the crowd’s surprise, he smiled. Not a pleasant smile. A cruel, jagged, wolfish thing.

  “Oh really? You’ll finally fight me, you fucking pussy?” Henryk snapped.

  Edward scrambled to his feet, hands seizing Henryk’s shoulders to hold him back. But his fingers nearly slipped—Henryk’s body had changed. Broader. Harder. He wasn’t the same boy. He felt like rebar wrapped in rage.

  Jace took a half-step back. “I-I’ll have cause to now,” he said, laughing deep in his chest—but sweat glistened on his brow like betrayal. “Hell, maybe I’ll whip out my dad’s ARC Core. That’ll knock you down a peg.”

  Edward’s mind stuttered.

  The ARC Core.

  Like the Empirical ARC—godlight trapped in metal. But rarer. And older. Even he might’ve inherited one… if his father’s hadn’t been torn to pieces across the broken stones of Mars.

  The masses knew what the Empirical ARC could do. Illuminate galaxies. Reshape matter. But the older ARCs? The heirlooms of warlords and kings? Their powers were whispers. Myths. Rumors wrapped in blood and bone.

  And Henryk? He was not ready for that kind of threat.

  “Henryk, you are not fighting him,” Edward said, voice cracking, hand still gripping his shoulder.

  But Henryk wasn’t listening.

  “Nah. Nah, this fucker’s been messing with my life long enough. Fucking with my school. Sending goons after me. That last mech duel?” His voice rose like a drumbeat before war. “I know that was you, Jace!”

  Henryk’s shout cracked through the air like thunder. He raised a hand slowly, a twisted smile playing at his lips.

  “…Where the hell’ve you been this whole time?”

  Jace stared at him, then grinned—cold and slick.

  “Here. You’ve just been too scared to look.”

  Henryk’s smile vanished. His eyes glowed red, bloodshot with exhaustion and fury.

  “Jace… I’ve been living in the goddamn sequel to Beasts of No Nation.”

  A ragged laugh escaped him, but it was hollow.

  “I haven’t slept in days. I’ve been thrown around my Warcasket like a chew toy. So go ahead, talk your shit. You think I give a damn anymore?” His voice cracked, raw and furious.

  “What’s another day? What’s another dead kid?”

  The room went still. Cold.

  Eliza stepped forward, silent as frost, stopping beside Jace. But her eyes never left Himari.

  “…Is this your doing, witch?” she whispered—though not aloud, not truly. It was spoken on that quiet, forbidden plane that only Eliza, Esava, and Himari walked upon.

  Himari burst out laughing.

  It was wild. Free.

  Her head tilted back and her hand rose to her mouth, but she didn’t stop.

  The sound clashed with the silence like a chime in a morgue.

  Others turned, uncertain, watching her like she was a fuse burning toward a keg.

  Esava only sighed—long, slow, resigned. She shook her head, but never once did her eyes leave the brewing storm at the center of the room.

  Jace was laughing—but it was forced, brittle. A desperate attempt to drown out Henryk’s voice with rising octaves, each one more shrill than the last.

  Edward watched, wide-eyed. His gaze darted around the room like a hunted animal searching for an escape.

  He saw it—everyone saw it.

  Atticus, who’d fought beside Henryk and knew what lived beneath his skin.

  Zephyr, who’d always called Henryk cold-blooded, quiet—the kind of quiet that follows a funeral. Even when Henryk had left, betrayed and discarded, he'd never lashed out.

  But now…

  What chilled Edward’s blood wasn’t the fury in Henryk. It was the tremor in his hand. The thin, silent breaths he drew between every sentence, like someone clinging to the edge of restraint.

  If Henryk said it—if he said the words Jace wanted to hear: I challenge you.

  That was it.

  Jace would kill him.

  Edward didn’t know the full story of what happened between Hannah and Henryk. But it didn’t matter. This had to be handled carefully—surgically. Jace was holding back, but not out of fear. Something else. Maybe political. Maybe his father didn’t know what had transpired between his children and Henryk...

  And if that was true…

  Then that silence from above was the only thing protecting Henryk from death by trial.

  And then—

  The door blew open.

  The handle cracked off the wall as Bracken stormed in, boots thudding like war drums. All heads whipped toward him.

  He was tallish, brown-haired, eyes wide and wild. His rifle was clutched in both hands—shaking, but very real.

  “You’re all screaming and whispering like snakes,” Bracken barked, his voice cracking, “and my brother’s corpse is in the next room—rotting!”

  The air turned sharp. Cold.

  “Bracken…,” Henryk started.

  “Don’t!” Bracken snapped. The word cracked like a whip.

  He turned on the room, eyes bloodshot and rimmed with grief. “Here you all are, highborn bastards, arguing over votes, politics, and duels—while my brother’s body lies cold on a fucking slab!”

  Zephyr stepped forward, trying to calm the storm. “Kid, I get it. I’ve lost men too. I can sympathize—”

  “It’s a vote, right?” Bracken cut him off, circling like a shark around a shipwreck.

  Clarissa didn’t like the look of the rifle in his hands. Neither did anyone else.

  The room was rectangular—short, long, boxed in. Most of the crowd was pushed toward the rear center from the earlier shouting. Bracken now stood between them and the only way out. His rifle, no longer trembling, now looked steady.

  Grief had hardened into something else.

  “Bracken, easy. Easy, brother,” Edward said, both hands raised slowly like he was defusing a bomb.

  “Easy? Easy?!”

  Bracken laughed—and it was unhinged, raw, too loud.

  A few people flinched.

  Then—

  Stella stepped forward.

  Her eyes were narrowed, unreadable. She wasn’t looking at the gun. She was looking at the boy holding it.

  “Bracken of House Pluto,” she said, voice low but clear. “You're now the acting president of your House. Your people need you now. More than ever.”

  Bracken turned toward her like someone had slapped him.

  “What the fuck did you just say?” he roared. His voice cracked at the edges. “What kind of fantasy bullshit are you spitting at me right now?!”

  “Stella, what are you doing?” Logan whispered. He sounded baffled—genuinely confused. Stella, the quiet girl. The one always behind the curtain, never speaking unless cornered. And now—this?

  Stella didn’t blink. She took a step forward.

  “Your brother would’ve wanted you to be strong,” she said softly. “Not reckless. Not broken.”

  She raised her hand. Slowly. Then clenched it into a fist.

  “The Plutonians have survived worse. Starvation. Rebellion. Death.” Her voice rose like a tide. “Your people need you. And your brother—he would’ve wanted to see you lead.”

  Bracken stood there, staring.

  Something in him faltered.

  He tilted his head like an owl—stiff, unnatural—and his face twisted.

  Then came the whisper:

  “Don’t talk like you knew him…”

  The silence that followed was the kind that clung to the skin. No one moved. No one breathed. It just settled, like dust over a battlefield.

  Logan cast a glance toward Stella—strange, unreadable. But Bracken was already shaking his head, jaw tight.

  “You all think you know better, huh?” His voice cracked, fists trembling at his sides. “So just—get the fuck out of here.”

  Someone rose to speak, but Bracken’s voice exploded again, rage and grief mixing into something feral.

  “Fucking leave!” he bellowed, spinning toward them. “Get out of our home!”

  “He curses at me again,” said Carmen, her voice sharp and cold, cutting across the air like a blade. “He dies.”

  “Oh? You wanna try it?” Bracken spat back, eyes bloodshot and shining with something beyond anger—loss.

  “Easy,” Atticus said, both palms raised. He looked at the room like a man trying to keep a match from hitting a powder keg. “Can’t we all just chill out? Like… really chill.”

  For once, his sister wasn’t glaring at him like she wanted him dead. That felt like a win.

  “Let’s breathe, alright? Just breathe. We let House Pluto investigate. We handle our own eggs and hens.”

  “I’m not opposed to the Earthian’s idea,” Ivan said, cutting through the tension with unexpected calm. His comrades gave him side-eyes, but he shrugged. “What? None of us want this turning into a goddamn bloodbath. We all got futures. This—” he gestured to the room, “—isn’t it.”

  His eyes lingered between Jace and Logan.

  Logan crossed his arms, then hugged them tighter to his chest like he was cold. “Fine. I agree. We’ve got a murderer around here. But hell, we’ve always known this academy was never safe.”

  He paused, and his gaze slid to Henryk like a knife.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Rapists. Killers. Monsters in uniform.”

  “You’re wrong about the rape part,” Henryk said, clicking his tongue. “But you’re right—I am a killer. You want to test me too? I can kill another boy.”

  “You think one kill makes you a warrior?” Logan scoffed, throwing up his hands. “Get real. You’re just a freak who got lucky—got his hands on a relic that wasn’t even yours.”

  Henryk’s lip curled. “Weakness. That’s all I felt when I walked through your Neptunian halls. Weakness masked by gold and hubris.”

  He took a step forward, finger stabbing the air.

  “All this talk of reforming the Trident? You’re nothing but a dying empire. Grasping at stones while the sea swallows you.”

  “Fucking dead empire, huh?” Logan bristled, jaw twitching.

  But before he could snap back, it was Stella who moved.

  She bared her teeth, fury dancing in her eyes. “You son of a bitch—”

  “Fuck off, bitch!” Henryk snarled. The crowd erupted—shouts, gasps, a storm of oohs and growls.

  He spun on the witches, narrowing his eyes. Something about their posture—too still, too quiet—they were trying something.

  “Henryk, enough!” Edward’s voice cracked like thunder.

  He stepped forward and grabbed him—hard. This time, Henryk felt it. That Martian strength wasn’t theatrical—it was real. A quiet, coiled power that had only been masked by friendship until now.

  Edward’s fingers dug into his arm like iron stakes. And in that moment, Henryk remembered—his friend was not human. Not fully.

  “Bracken was my friend too,” Henryk choked. “I won’t tolerate disrespect.”

  “You dishonor him,” Edward growled. “Fighting next to his rotting corpse like this.”

  Henryk froze. Even Bracken went still, blinking like he’d just heard a foreign language.

  The words struck like a hammer.

  Edward’s voice dropped. “Let’s wrap this up. We’re all running on fumes. There’s been enough death… hasn’t there, buddy?”

  Henryk didn’t answer.

  But his eyes widened—Isaac’s face flashed before him. Pale. Still. Dead. He hadn’t known him well, but they’d fought shoulder to shoulder. And now, there’d be one less voice in the dark.

  One more name swallowed by silence.

  Gerald’s death had felt like the start.

  Isaac’s made it feel like the end.

  “Let’s finish this up,” Edward said, voice level, but tired. His shoulders sagged as he glanced sideways at Henryk. “We’ve been gone a while. Only thing on my mind now is a warm bed… and something that doesn’t taste like freeze-dried concrete.”

  “I remember you guys… back during Oceana.”

  The voice was light, a surprise. Violet—the Violet from Uranus—was the one speaking. She wore a small, far-off smile like someone revisiting a grave they weren’t ready to mourn.

  “…Planet still holding up? Nickolas is native, isn’t he?”

  “Really?” Edward chuckled, flashing her a smirk. “That makes you part Martian then, doesn’t it?”

  Nickolas rolled his eyes. “Moved my family out of there years ago. But sure, I’ll bite. How’s the red rock doing?”

  Logan scoffed without turning his head. “War-torn shitshow. Either the GrimGar or these parasites can’t stop pissing in the well.”

  “Jesus, Logan,” Stella muttered, arms crossed tight. Her glare was sharp enough to wound, but no one else dared speak. Just silence and shifting eyes.

  “Let’s just wrap this,” she added. “Calm the room down. We’re not fighting anymore.”

  Logan leaned in close to her, whispering through clenched teeth, eyes never leaving Henryk. “Just a bit longer. Then I’m done playing civil.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Henryk said, stepping forward slightly. The lights above cast shadows across his face, sharpening his features into something darker than defiance. “If the cops catch the bastard, good. Gerald’s killer deserves a cell. Not a chance to disappear into legend while we pretend it never happened.”

  Stella’s lips curled. Zephyr’s glare could’ve boiled steel. And Ivan—his jaw clenched as he turned toward Edward with a predator’s sneer.

  “I didn’t realize your lieutenant speaks for you now,” Ivan said, voice low and mocking. He turned, sweeping his gaze across the assembly. “Is this some new House Mars decree?”

  It was Esava who spoke then, stepping forward like a blade unsheathed. “Are these the orders from your House?” Her eyes locked on Edward and Henryk like she meant to burn holes through them both.

  Edward sighed. Long and deep, like the weight of all their dead had settled on his ribs. He glanced at Henryk. Just once.

  “Guess it is,” he said. The smirk that followed was half-apology, half-dare.

  He nodded at Logan. “Like our friend said—this doesn’t hit us the same. But we liked Gerald. So when they find whoever did this?” He shrugged. “Let the bastard rot.”

  Henryk mirrored the smile. But his had more teeth.

  Clarissa raised her eyebrows, then gave the laziest shrug in the room. “As long as someone bags the bastard, I don’t care if it’s the cops or the Martians. Just don’t let him vanish.”

  Atticus blinked. “You?” He stared at her like she’d just sprouted claws.

  Clarissa gave him a look. “What? We’ve got no major ops on the line. Let Mars play moral police for once. Who really loses if they push for justice?”

  Atticus scratched his neck, scanning the room. He was seeing the gears behind the words now. The politics threading between every sentence.

  “If this goes through clean…” he said, voice like dry rust. “The Martians’ll walk away clean. Plutonians’ll get their justice. But you better believe the guild’s operations will stall out. And House Mars?” He looked at Edward and Henryk. “They’ll wear the brunt of it.”

  And that was when Bracken snapped.

  He jabbed a thumb at his own chest, nostrils flaring. “I don’t want to go to the fucking authorities!” he shouted.

  All heads turned. No one moved.

  Henryk stepped forward. “Bracken… he was your brother. You’re not thinking straight—”

  “I don’t care!” Bracken’s eyes were glassy now, wild. “Me and the soldiers of Pluto—we’ll find that fucker. Tie him up like a hog.”

  He licked his lips.

  “And the things we’ll do to him—or her…”

  A silence fell.

  Himari shuddered, shoulders curling inward. There was something in Bracken’s voice that didn’t belong. Something that slithered. Something that breathed in the dark corners of a man broken open.

  Such hate. Such violence... she thought. It wasn’t spoken, but it hung in the air like the ghost of gunfire—something already felt before the trigger ever got pulled.

  Henryk stepped forward, boots silent but steady on the tile. “Bracken…”

  To everyone’s surprise, Bracken didn’t flinch—he even let Henryk rest a hand on his shoulder. That small moment, that mercy, was a crack in the tension.

  Zephyr exhaled slow. The sound was like steam leaking from a fractured pipe. “I don’t want to go to the police,” he said, voice flat. “So that makes it what—two to one?”

  “Zephyr, he doesn’t even know what the hell he’s saying,” Henryk snapped, hand still resting lightly on Bracken.

  Zephyr shrugged, one shoulder rising higher than the other in a gesture that screamed indifference, but his eyes were sharp. “He said it plain as day. And let’s not kid ourselves—you shouldn’t be out here peddling justice like it’s yours to give. The Academy? Half those bastards couldn’t solve a stolen lunchbox.”

  “Promising?” Henryk spat. “Yeah, I bet you know a thing or two about broken promises.” He scowled, voice curling into something venomous. “You bastard.”

  He turned back to Bracken—but the air shifted. Clive broke out into a deep, rolling laugh. It wasn’t mirth—it was wrong. Too low. Too guttural. Himari and Esava both instinctively took a step back. Something feral had escaped that boy’s chest, and the room felt it.

  “Fuck that…” Ivan raised a hand, like he was casting a vote in a crooked parliament. “Fuck the police.”

  “I agree,” said Logan, smiling the kind of smile you see before a barfight begins. He raised his hand.

  Jace followed. “I second that.”

  Three votes. Mars and Earth stood alone.

  Pluto, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, Mercury—opposing.

  Henryk’s jaw clenched. The numbers had swung, and badly. Only Uranus and Jupiter remained—and without them, the vote was lost. Unless Bracken flipped. And Bracken looked ready to kill, not deliberate.

  Esava stepped forward, calm and terrifying. “You know how we sisters of Jupiter feel,” she began, her voice velvet but sharp as glass, “about outsiders meddling in our affairs. Especially the Academy.”

  She turned her gaze fully on Edward and Henryk, appraising them like chess pieces—measuring not just what they were, but what they could become. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Justice has its time. Its place. But…” Her voice faltered. Then softened. “Perhaps… a brother’s street justice does too.”

  Henryk opened his mouth—but stopped.

  “…And what happens,” he said finally, voice low, “if Bracken gets the wrong guy?”

  The words were gasoline. Himari and Esava blinked—visibly shaken.

  “You expecting me to believe he and his friends are gonna run a proper investigation?” Henryk’s tone sharpened with every word. “You think they’ve got chain of evidence? Restraint? What’s going to happen is someone ends up bleeding in a gutter—maybe a killer. Maybe not. And Gerald? He gets forgotten in the noise.”

  Bracken’s eyes twitched. The words had found something raw.

  Henryk kept going. “There’s evidence. There are leads we haven’t followed. Every second we waste, that trail goes colder. You don’t find murderers with emotion. You find them with truth.”

  Then, out of nowhere, from the corner of the room:

  “Maybe it was you.”

  The room froze.

  Yuri stood with his arms crossed, voice calm, tone clinical. But his eyes—they held nothing. No anger. No tension. Just absence. Like he’d already made peace with the accusation.

  Henryk turned, slow and wary. Yuri towered over him—a tall, pale phantom of a man, white-haired and cold-eyed. Henryk didn’t like the word afraid. But there were people in the galaxy—people born wrong, made worse—and Yuri was one of them.

  He reminded Henryk of things that crawled out of places where no sunlight reached.

  “He does carry a chain weapon,” said Himari softly, as if realizing it only now. She stood near Esava, voice unsteady. “And he keeps preaching about justice like he’s got none to lose. Just like Edward said… this doesn’t affect them.”

  “What I really want to know,” Yuri said, voice low, a snake’s hiss before the strike, “is how you were talking all that shit about going to the police no matter how this duel ends.”

  Henryk took a step back. The floor beneath him felt like it was made of shifting sand. His fingers were slick with sweat. That old feeling stirred in his chest—the one that came just before blood spilled. His body knew it before his brain did: this might turn violent.

  “You think that under the Empire—under the Emperor—murder should go unreported?” Henryk asked, tone clipped, cautious. A man trying to reason with a gun.

  Yuri laughed, sharp and brutal, and pointed at him like he was already laying the blame. “I don’t give a fuck what the Eunuch Emperor thinks. This goes how it goes. You don’t like it? Tough shit. But keep running your mouth—swear to God, faggot, you know what we do to snitches at the Academy.”

  The word landed like a hammer on glass. The room stiffened. Even the shadows seemed to flinch. Henryk’s jaw locked. His fists curled tight at his sides, and for a moment he could feel every stare burning into him.

  Ed moved in like a blade sliding from its sheath. “President Ivan,” he said, cold, deliberate. “Control your man.”

  Ivan leaned forward, a curl of amusement at the edge of his mouth. “Control yours,” he said. “Yuri’s not the one losing his shit like a brat. And I haven’t been enabling him either. Now, will you—”

  “Of course we’ll honor it,” Ed cut him off, voice sharp enough to draw blood. He turned to the others. “Uranus. You’re up.”

  “We’re just gonna let that slide?” Nickolas asked, rising from his seat, his boys coming up behind him like wolves scenting trouble. They traded glances. Ed exhaled. Things were boiling. He needed them out before they spilled over.

  One by one, the rest began to file out. Too quickly. Too organized. Like they were escaping a sinking ship.

  In the end, only Henryk, Ed, and Bracken remained.

  Bracken was on his knees. Eyes glassy. Detached. His rifle dangled from his fingers like it might fire from sheer despair. One twitch. That’s all it would take.

  Henryk moved slowly, hands out, voice level. “Give it.”

  Bracken’s grip tightened. “No,” he said. Quiet. Final.

  Henryk clenched his jaw and ripped the rifle from his hands in a sudden motion, swift and surgical.

  “What are you doing?” Bracken snapped, stumbling to his feet.

  “Making sure you don’t hurt yourself,” Henryk shot back.

  “Why do you care, Martian?” Bracken snarled, his voice cracking with rage and grief. “You think you can play the hero? After what you did? After what your kind did to my people?”

  “I’m not doing this as a Martian.” Henryk’s voice lowered. His features softened, though his eyes burned. “Bracken… Gerald was my friend. We didn’t talk much, but we fought side by side. Your brother saved my life.”

  There was a tremor in his words now, like the foundation of a house about to collapse. “You don’t know this, but we lost another friend in the Sons of Mars. A good man.”

  Bracken froze. His anger still there, but confused. Wounded.

  “I can’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling,” Henryk continued. “But I’ve got two little sisters back home. If one of them found me dead in some corridor… murdered like Gerald was… I can’t imagine a worse fate. No evil greater.”

  Bracken was trembling now. His sobs came without sound, just violent shudders running through his chest. His hands clutched at his head like he was trying to hold his mind together.

  “I—I ain’t even a real first year,” he muttered, voice hollow. “And they’re gonna expect me to lead.”

  Henryk took a knee beside Bracken, his movements slow, deliberate. The cold weight of the rifle sat steady in his hand, but he grounded the butt against the floor, as if anchoring himself. The boy in front of him was breaking, and all Henryk could offer was borrowed strength.

  “…The only thing I can tell you,” Henryk began, voice quiet but clear, “as an older sibling—someone who could see, without a doubt, that Gerald loved and valued you…”

  Bracken let the tears fall. No more resistance. His frame cracked like glass under strain, and he wept.

  “…is that you have to do good by his memory. You keep moving forward, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. Don’t give up. The last thing your brother would ever want is for you to join him early.”

  Bracken was shaking, his sobs wracking his body, folding him in on himself like some battered relic. “…H-how do you know?” he asked, voice hollow, eyes distant. He rocked, back and forth, like a child in mourning. “You and Stella talk like you know everything… but you don’t…”

  Henryk exhaled. Slowly. Deeply. His chest rose like a tide pulling back before a wave.

  “It’s because…” He paused, a faint, tired smile breaking across his lips. “Because I could tell Gerald loved you. Same way I love my sisters.”

  He tilted his gaze to the ceiling above, as though searching for something higher than himself.

  “For all the nameless brothers and sisters throughout history… the ones who had to become fathers and mothers in their parents’ absence. We inherit that burden. But we also keep something else—something purer. That childlike ideal… that dreams are possible.”

  His voice didn’t tremble, but there was weight in every word, like stone set gently into a grave.

  “I came to this Academy to give my sisters the life they were never given. And I’m risking my life every day for that. If I die…” He blinked once. “If I die, my only wish is for them to live long, full, happy lives. That would be enough for me. That would be everything.”

  Bracken’s breath hitched in his throat. His eyes widened, and for a flicker of a second, some color returned to his cheeks. Some flicker of light.

  Then, without warning, Bracken lurched forward and hugged Henryk. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t gentle. It was desperate and heavy and wet with grief. Henryk froze, his arms hovering, unsure of where they belonged. Even Edward stared in stunned silence, lips parted, eyes wide. No one had expected this.

  Bracken sobbed louder now—howled, really—his cries echoing off the steel and glass. It wasn’t just for Gerald anymore. It was for everything. The war, the expectations, the fear of leadership he hadn’t asked for. The ghosts piling up in the corners of their rooms.

  And Henryk, quiet and still, thought of Issac.

  The Sons of Mars had lost a brother too. And the silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was mourning.

  Unseen by them all, Esava stood just outside the open doorway. Her back pressed flat to the wall, hidden in the shadow, her arms crossed beneath the flowing fabric of her Jupiteran robes. She looked tired—older than her years.

  Her voice, when she spoke, was barely a whisper.

  “So, it was all lies,” she murmured, eyes half-lidded. “Someone like you… couldn’t be the plague rotting this Academy.”

  She shook her head, hair falling loose around her face. Her mind wandered—briefly—to Bri, to Himari, to Belle-Anne and the strange pain they carried. That had been resolved. Maybe. Maybe not. The world was like that. Unfinished business always waiting behind another door.

  Esava sighed. Not now. Not tonight.

  It had been a long day.

  Too long.