Fall break arrived like an inevitability.
No send-off. No speeches. Students just peeled away from Mythos Academy's routine, each into their own track—home, private training, internships under family banners. The island felt lighter by noon, like the school itself had exhaled.
Rachel handled the logistics. Of course she did. She didn't wave a crest around or make a scene; doors simply opened when she walked toward them. We stepped from Mythos' departure circle to a Northern Continent warp hub in one clean blink. Glass, steel, glow-lines in the floor, the smooth hush of belts moving people who knew where they were going. Rachel checked her phone, already moving.
"Come on," she said. "We have one more transfer."
I fell in beside her. We'd known each other for two, maybe three months. Long enough to have a rhythm. Long enough to know that when she said "transfer," the next hour of my life would be painless and expensive.
