The audit left a residue that didn't show up on any ledger. Officially, the contractor subcontractor had been dismissed and the anchor network patched; unofficially, conversations shifted to lower tones and longer pauses. Cadets who had once joked about the liaison's cards now kept their hands in their pockets. Captain Rhea moved through the halls with a new, quieter vigilance, as if she were listening for a seam in the air that might tear.
Arjun felt the change like a pressure at his collarbone. The Astraeon Veil's halo had brightened with practice, but the corruption threads from the cutter and the attempted override still flared when he pushed too hard. He had learned to treat those flares like weather: note them, log them, and let the Phoenix‑root medic guide the healing. He had also learned that some weather came from people, not place.
The mentorship circle met in the low room with maps and practice rigs. Captain Rhea opened the session with a short, precise brief: We will run a containment drill. No contractors. No anchors. Pure sigil and construct coordination. We test whether a stitch can be sustained without external power draws. The room hummed with the kind of concentration that made mistakes feel heavier than usual.
They ran the drill twice, then three times. Each run tightened the choreography: cadence, breath, the exact pressure of a Golem‑bond's palm. Arjun found the work humbling and exacting; each successful shared activation left a thin, steady glow on his mind‑screen. The Phoenix‑root medic walked the circle afterward, hands on shoulders, reminding them to write their reflective entries. The ritual of logging had become a kind of armor—small, private, and effective.
On the third run the corridor held longer than it had any right to. The seam hummed with a steady, even tone. Captain Rhea allowed herself a small, almost imperceptible nod. The circle exhaled. They had proven that a stitch could be shared and sustained without contractor anchors. The victory was technical and quiet, but it mattered.
Later that evening, as the practice rigs cooled, a message arrived that cut through the quiet: a field report from a neighboring district—an old tram hub where tide‑light pooled in a lattice of cracked rails. The report was short and urgent: a resonance flare, a collapsed support, and a rumor that someone had been trying to splice contractor anchors into civilian conduits. The language was careful; the implication was blunt. Someone was testing whether the contractor override could be used in public infrastructure.
Captain Rhea read the message once and then folded it into her palm. She did not look surprised. "We go," she said. "We go with a small team. No contractors. We go to contain and to learn." Her voice left no room for argument.
The tram hub smelled of old oil and salt. Tide‑light pooled in the rails like veins of pale glass. Civilians clustered at the edges, faces lit by lanterns and worry. The collapsed support had pinned a maintenance rig and a pair of workers beneath a tangle of metal. The flare had been small but sharp—enough to fry a sensor and enough to make the academy's telemetry twitch.
Arjun moved through the crowd with the Golem‑bond at his side and the Phoenix‑root medic behind him. He felt the halo at his throat like a compass. Captain Rhea coordinated with local officials, her voice steady and practical. They set up a perimeter and began the slow work of clearing debris and stabilizing the support. The academy's rules were strict: no unsanctioned anchors, no contractor interference, and mandatory documentation of any external attempts to draw power.
Halfway through the extraction a technician from the local grid pointed to a seam in the rail and swore softly. "Someone tried to splice an anchor here," he said. "Look—these burn marks. They tried to pull a draw through the conduit." The contractor‑style scorch was unmistakable. The crowd murmured. Captain Rhea's jaw tightened.
Arjun knelt by the seam and felt the map's small memory: a faint echo of a hand, a quick pulse of unauthorized power. The Astraeon Veil's mind‑screen pulsed a warning: External resonance residue detected. He could feel the corruption thread like a bruise. The Phoenix‑root medic moved to his side and murmured, Log it. Reflect. We treat the seam and the people.
They worked with the patient, careful motions the academy had taught them. Arjun stitched a narrow corridor across the broken rails to give the medics a sheltered lane. The Golem‑bond pressed the edges and the Phoenix‑root medic moved through with a lantern. The corridor hummed and swallowed sound; the extraction finished without blood. But the scorch on the rail did not belong to the city's weather. It belonged to someone who had tried to bend public infrastructure into a private route.
Captain Rhea called for a secure sweep. They found a small cache tucked beneath a service panel: a jury‑rigged draw device, scorched and half‑melted, with a badge that matched the contractor house implicated in the earlier override. The device had been used and discarded. Someone had tried to test the contractor override on public rails and then left the evidence behind.
The discovery changed the tenor of the mission. This was no longer a simple containment; it was a probe. Someone was testing whether contractor anchors could be used to splice into civic conduits—an act that would let private houses move goods and people through public infrastructure without oversight. The implications were political and dangerous.
Back at the academy the evidence was cataloged and sealed. Director Sethi convened a small panel. The contractor house denied involvement and blamed a rogue operator; the liaison offered cooperation. Ishaan's crew watched from the edges with a fox‑like patience. Captain Rhea's report was precise and unsparing: the device matched the earlier override, the scorch patterns were consistent, and the attempt had been made in a public, civilian space.
Arjun sat through the panel with his hands folded and the Astraeon Veil like a small constellation at his throat. He felt the weight of the evidence and the way it bent conversations. The academy moved to tighten oversight of contractor anchors and to push for stricter penalties for misuse. The contractor houses bristled. The liaison's dossier thickened.
That night, when the formalities had been filed and the academy's corridors had quieted, Ishaan found Arjun in the practice yard. He did not offer a contract. He offered instead a question that felt like a test: Who benefits from making public rails private? His voice was low and careful. Around them the academy's glass eaves threw thin circuit lines across the courtyard.
Arjun answered as he had learned to answer: plainly. He said that private houses could profit by moving goods through public routes without oversight; he said that contractors could gain leverage over districts by controlling access; he said that the city's map would be redrawn by those with the means to stitch it. Ishaan listened and then, with a slow nod, said, "Then you'll be a target. Be careful who you trust."
Arjun folded the liaison's card into his palm and felt the halo flare. The favor Ishaan had offered—an off‑record hand if needed—felt both like a lifeline and a chain. The academy would tighten oversight; contractors would push back. Someone had already tried to splice anchors into public rails. The question now was not whether the world would change, but who would be allowed to stitch the change.
He walked the canal that night with the Astraeon Veil like a quiet constellation at his throat. The tide‑light pulsed along the stones, steady and indifferent. He opened his mind‑screen and wrote the reflective entries the Phoenix‑root medic required: about the splice device, about the contractor's possible motives, about the way the city's map could be bent by those who had both skill and appetite. Each entry eased the fatigue thread a little. Each entry made the halo steadier.
When he closed the screen he felt the city's small, altered geography like a map that had been folded and refolded. The stitch he had made at Trial Day had become a lever. The academy would teach him how to hold it without breaking. The world beyond the academy would teach him how to use it. Between those lessons lay choices that would not be recorded in any ledger: who to trust, when to hold, and when to let a seam go.