The academy had an impressive talent for making simple things difficult.
Finding a student should have been simple.
Tomas Rowe had attended Gallows Edge Academy.
His name was in the records.
His brother knew where he lived.
And Greyhaven was technically within academy territory.
Yet Arthur had spent most of the morning discovering increasingly creative reasons why he could not legally leave the fortress.
The latest one was written on a red notice.
CADETS UNDER REMEDIAL EVALUATION MAY NOT LEAVE THE MAIN ACADEMY COMPLEX WITHOUT FACULTY AUTHORIZATION.
Arthur read it twice.
Mira stood beside him.
“Still think checking the regulations was worth it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because now I know exactly which rule is preventing us.”
Mira stared at him.
“That doesn’t sound useful.”
“It is.”
Arthur folded the notice.
“A rule is easier to work with than uncertainty.”
“You’re going to find a loophole.”
“I prefer the term alternative procedure.”
“Of course you do.”
They returned to the training yard.
Julian was already waiting.
He looked at the notice in Arthur’s hand.
“Denied?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Arthur stopped.
“Why is that good?”
“Because you’re distracted.”
Julian tossed him a wooden sword.
“You’ve been thinking about the students all morning.”
Arthur caught it.
“I’m allowed to think.”
“You’re not allowed to think while fighting me.”
“That seems unnecessarily restrictive.”
Julian raised his sword.
“Come.”
Arthur sighed.
There were worse ways to spend the next hour.
Probably.
The first exchange lasted fourteen seconds.
Arthur took a hit to the shoulder.
The second lasted twenty-two.
A strike caught his thigh.
The third reached thirty-one.
Julian changed direction.
Arthur reacted too slowly.
Wood struck his ribs.
He stepped back.
“Again.”
Julian didn’t ask whether he was ready.
He attacked.
Arthur stopped watching the sword.
That had been the lesson.
Chest.
Hips.
Feet.
Weight.
Movement.
The body revealed more than the weapon.
Except Julian had learned that Arthur was watching.
So he started lying with his body.
A slight shift of the shoulder.
A false step.
A deliberately exaggerated change in weight.
Arthur moved toward the wrong opening.
The sword stopped an inch from his throat.
Julian lowered it.
“You’re still reading me.”
“I thought that was the point.”
“Not if I know you’re reading.”
Arthur frowned.
“So I need to read the reader.”
Julian grinned.
“Now you’re learning.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
They continued.
For the next twenty minutes, Arthur lost almost every exchange.
But something had changed.
He stopped treating every loss as failure.
Some attacks he couldn’t avoid.
Some movements he couldn’t read.
Some physical differences were simply too large.
Julian was faster.
Stronger.
More experienced.
There was no clever argument that changed that.
But Arthur could decide where he stood.
When he moved.
When he retreated.
When he stopped chasing an opening that wasn’t there.
By the end of the session, he had lasted one minute and twelve seconds.
Julian lowered his sword.
“Better.”
Arthur was breathing heavily.
“That’s becoming your favorite word.”
“Because you’re becoming less terrible.”
“An inspiring assessment.”
Julian smiled.
“You’ll survive the evaluation.”
Arthur looked at him.
“That sounded almost supportive.”
“Don’t misunderstand me.”
Julian walked away.
“I still plan to beat you properly later.”
Arthur watched him leave.
A strange thing had happened.
He believed him.
Mira was waiting outside the yard.
She held a folded paper.
“I found a way into Greyhaven.”
Arthur took it.
“Illegal?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Technically.”
Arthur unfolded the paper.
It was a maintenance authorization.
Students assigned to equipment inspection could enter the lower platforms during approved work periods.
Arthur looked at her.
“You’re assigned to equipment inspection?”
“No.”
“Then?”
Mira pointed toward the bottom.
SCHOLARSHIP EQUIPMENT AUDIT — MIRA THORN
Arthur read it again.
“You forged this?”
“No.”
“Then how did you get it?”
“I didn’t.”
Arthur looked confused.
Mira smiled.
“Someone else submitted it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
“I found the authorization already approved.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
Arthur looked at the signature.
It belonged to Instructor Seraphine Voss.
Mira crossed her arms.
“I didn’t ask her.”
Arthur stared at the document.
“She knew.”
“Apparently.”
“Or someone used her authorization.”
“Yes.”
Arthur folded the paper.
“Either way, we’re not going alone.”
Mira nodded.
“Derek?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll want to come.”
“He does.”
Arthur glanced toward the academy gates.
“Then we go before someone changes their mind.”
Greyhaven looked smaller from above.
From the academy, it had seemed like a collection of dim lights beneath the floating fortress.
Up close, Arthur realized it was an actual settlement.
Markets.
Workshops.
Small houses built against the platform’s metal foundations.
People moved through narrow streets beneath enormous shadows cast by Gallows Edge.
The academy towered overhead.
Greyhaven existed beneath it.
Literally.
Arthur disliked the symbolism.
Mira led them through the market.
Derek followed several steps behind.
He looked nervous.
“You’re sure Tomas is here?”
“Yes,” Mira said.
Derek nodded.
“My mother said he came home yesterday.”
Arthur stopped.
“Yesterday?”
Derek nodded.
“He usually stays inside.”
“Why?”
Derek hesitated.
“He doesn’t like people seeing the mark.”
Arthur remembered what Derek had told him.
The non-magical burn on Tomas’s back.
“What kind of mark?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Derek looked uncomfortable.
“He doesn’t let anyone.”
Arthur didn’t push.
They reached a narrow house near the edge of the platform.
Derek knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
A woman opened the door.
Her eyes went immediately to Derek.
Then Mira.
Then Arthur.
Her expression hardened.
“You shouldn’t have brought him here.”
Derek lowered his head.
“Mother—”
“Inside.”
She looked at Arthur.
“You especially.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
“Me?”
“You’re academy.”
“That is technically correct.”
“You people came for him before.”
Arthur’s expression changed.
“When?”
She hesitated.
“Not you.”
She looked away.
“Others.”
Mira stepped forward.
“We aren’t here to take Tomas back.”
The woman studied her.
“Then why are you here?”
“To ask what happened.”
A long silence followed.
Finally, the woman opened the door wider.
“Tomas.”
No response.
“Tomas!”
A voice came from upstairs.
“I don’t want to talk.”
Derek looked up.
“It’s me.”
Silence.
Then:
“Who else?”
Derek hesitated.
“Mira.”
Another pause.
“And Arthur Vale.”
Nothing.
The silence became heavier.
Arthur looked at the ceiling.
Then came Tomas’s voice.
“Tell him to leave.”
Arthur nodded.
“That seems reasonable.”
Mira looked at him.
“You’re leaving?”
“No.”
“You just agreed.”
“I agreed that his request was reasonable.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Arthur looked toward the staircase.
“I’d like to speak to him too.”
Tomas didn’t answer.
Arthur waited.
Then he said,
“You don’t have to tell me anything about the academy.”
Still nothing.
“You don’t have to return.”
Silence.
“You don’t even have to tell me what happened.”
Derek looked at Arthur, confused.
Arthur continued.
“I only need to know one thing.”
Tomas finally appeared at the top of the stairs.
He was seventeen.
Pale.
Thin.
His hair was uneven, as if he’d cut it himself.
“What?”
Arthur looked up.
“Did you choose to leave?”
His mother closed her eyes.
Derek clenched his fists.
“No,” Tomas said.
One word.
Quiet.
Certain.
Arthur nodded.
“Thank you.”
Tomas stared at him.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
Arthur turned.
Mira looked surprised.
“We came all this way.”
“I know.”
He looked back at Tomas.
“You answered the question.”
Tomas frowned.
“Why do you care?”
Arthur paused.
Because nineteen names had become a twentieth.
Because his own name was on a document he couldn’t explain.
Because people had been reassigned and tested without understanding why.
But those weren’t the right words.
So he chose a simpler one.
“Because someone changed your story.”
Tomas stared at him.
Arthur continued.
“And I want to know why.”
They left the house twenty minutes later.
Tomas had given them almost nothing.
Except one thing.
A date.
The day he supposedly withdrew.
Arthur wrote it down.
Three weeks after the West Tower incident.
Mira checked her own records.
“That doesn’t match.”
Arthur looked at her.
“How?”
“Tomas’s medical discharge was filed twelve days before that.”
Derek swore quietly.
Arthur looked at the document again.
There were two dates.
One for the discharge.
One for the withdrawal.
They were different.
And neither matched what Tomas remembered.
Arthur felt a familiar irritation.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Something colder.
The irritation of a puzzle whose pieces had been deliberately moved.
“They didn’t simply alter his records,” he said.
Mira looked at him.
“They altered the timeline.”
Arthur nodded.
Derek stared at them.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur closed the notebook.
“It means someone wanted the academy’s version of events to be difficult to challenge.”
Mira’s expression hardened.
“And Tomas isn’t the only one.”
“No.”
Arthur looked at the list of nineteen students.
“Probably not.”
Back at Gallows Edge, the maintenance authorization disappeared.
Mira discovered it when they returned.
The clerk insisted no such document had ever been issued.
She showed him the copy.
He went pale.
Then he called a supervisor.
The supervisor called Training Administration.
Training Administration called Security.
Within twenty minutes, the document had become an administrative discrepancy.
Arthur listened from across the corridor.
No shouting.
No accusations.
No one was admitting anything.
That was the problem.
Mira walked over.
“They’re confiscating the original.”
“Expected.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Then why didn’t you stop them?”
Arthur looked at her.
“Because we have the copy.”
Mira smiled.
“Sometimes you’re useful.”
“High praise.”
She handed him another paper.
Arthur read it.
His smile disappeared.
MANDATORY REMEDIATION REVIEW — EVALUATION PARAMETERS UPDATED
The original three evaluators remained.
But a fourth name had been added.
DEPUTY TRAINING REGISTRAR HARLAN
Arthur read the line twice.
Mira whispered,
“He’s evaluating you.”
“Yes.”
“After we started investigating him.”
“Yes.”
“That can’t be a coincidence.”
Arthur folded the notice.
“No.”
For once, he didn’t need more evidence to recognize a problem.
The academy had just placed the person they were investigating on the panel deciding Arthur’s future.
That wasn’t a mystery.
It was leverage.
Arthur looked toward the western towers.
Then toward the training arena.
Three days.
He had three days before the evaluation.
And now he knew exactly what was at stake.
His ranking.
His training privileges.
His access.
Perhaps even his ability to keep investigating the nineteen students.
Arthur closed his notebook.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we stop investigating.”
Mira stared at him.
“What?”
Arthur’s expression remained calm.
“Tomorrow, we prepare.”
“For the evaluation?”
“Yes.”
“And after that?”
Arthur looked toward the arena where Julian was already waiting.
“After that, we find out what Harlan is afraid we’ll discover.”
Mira smiled faintly.
“You said we’re stopping.”
“For one day.”
“That isn’t stopping.”
“No.”
Arthur picked up his wooden sword.
“It’s strategy.”