Nexus removed Xavier from my room before breakfast.
I considered filing a complaint.
Then I met his replacement.
I reconsidered.
The notice had appeared beneath our door at six in the morning, printed on the same expensive cream paper Nexus apparently used whenever it wanted inconvenience to look official.
FINAL RESIDENTIAL ALLOCATION
Apparently the room Xavier and I had occupied for the first few nights had only been temporary—an integration arrangement while faculties, merit classifications, sponsorship obligations, medical restrictions and whatever other categories the Academy worshipped were processed.
Xavier read his assignment twice.
"West House, third floor. Room thirty-one."
I checked the second line.
XAVIER — ARKAD SOL
"Congratulations."
"Who is Arkad Sol?"
"A man about to discover your charming morning temperament."
Xavier ignored me.
"And you?"
I looked at mine.
RAYMOND — BALTHAZAR QUELL
No other information.
Which meant either Quell was completely ordinary or Nexus expected the name to explain itself.
Names that were supposed to explain themselves usually belonged to rich families.
I folded the notice.
Xavier was already packing.
That should not have bothered me.
It did not bother me.
Mostly.
He picked up the blue Nexus sash hanging over his bed.
"You're staring."
"I'm remembering when you needed permission to cross a river."
"I never needed permission."
"You nearly drowned."
"That's different."
"Philosophically, perhaps."
He shoved a shirt into his bag.
I watched him pack without helping.
Another disturbing habit.
Before the island, I had spent much of one life learning that possession disguised itself well.
It could wear concern.
Responsibility.
Love.
Leadership.
Eventually you discovered you had built a cage and were offended that the bird resented the architecture.
I had no interest in building cages.
Chessboards were lighter.
That was not necessarily better.
"You'll still be in the same building," Xavier said.
"I know."
"And we have the same combat wing."
"I know."
"And the Sierra."
"Yes."
He stopped packing.
"Then why do you look like somebody died?"
"I always look like this."
"You don't."
"Pack your socks, Xavier."
He grinned.
Terrible boy.
---
My new roommate had already moved in.
That irritated me immediately.
When I opened Room Forty-Seven, one half looked exactly as Nexus intended: made bed, closed wardrobe, empty desk.
The other half looked like a small alchemical laboratory had married an accountant.
Books arranged by size.
Three glass cases.
A portable brass burner.
Four labeled reagent boxes.
A narrow black case locked beneath the desk.
A folded robe hung from the chair.
And a boy sat beside the window reading.
Dark hair.
Neat coat.
Not luxurious, but fitted too well to be cheap.
He looked up.
"Raymond."
I stopped.
"You have me at a disadvantage."
"Residential notice."
He raised the paper beside him.
Disappointing.
"I was hoping my reputation had preceded me."
"It did."
Better.
"What did it say?"
"That Gaia cannot classify you, you argued with three examiners, and Professor Veyr personally flagged your written test."
I placed my bag on the empty bed.
"Gossip has become terribly efficient."
"Nexus calls it student communication."
"What do sensible people call it?"
"Gossip."
I liked him slightly more.
He closed his book.
"Balthazar Quell."
"Raymond."
"I know."
"Please allow me occasional mystery."
"I'll try."
His eyes moved briefly toward the way I lowered my bag—right arm doing more work than the left.
He noticed the injury.
Said nothing.
Useful.
I noticed something in return.
A library credential lay beside his books.
Not the blue first-year card Xavier and I had been issued.
This one had a thin silver border and a small crest impressed beneath the Nexus seal.
A stylized flask beneath three stars.
Quell.
Family privilege, then.
I didn't ask.
Progress.
Balthazar followed my eyes anyway.
"Family authorization."
"For?"
"Research collections."
"How generous."
"It isn't."
"No?"
"My grandfather paid for half the restoration of the eastern alchemical wing. Nexus decided gratitude could be inherited as long as the donations were."
Very healthy institution.
"What can you access?"
He stared at me.
I smiled.
"Curiosity."
"You've been my roommate for forty seconds."
"Forty-three."
"General alchemical collections. Legacy catalogs. Some restricted technical indexes."
"Restricted archives?"
"No."
"Lower repository?"
His expression changed.
Very slightly.
So he knew it existed.
"No."
Good.
I started unpacking.
Balthazar watched for another moment.
Then reopened his book.
No question about why a first-year had asked about the Lower Repository.
Either discretion.
Or patience.
Both dangerous.
I placed my notebook in the desk.
Not the Blacklist.
That stayed on the Sierra.
So did Devil's Deceptions.
Some objects did not belong in a dormitory where boys thought locks were philosophical suggestions.
Behind me, Balthazar said:
"You sleep heavily?"
"Why?"
"You have Methodological Reasoning with Professor Ambre."
"So?"
"He dislikes sleeping students."
"Excellent."
"He dislikes arrogant students more."
"Less excellent."
"And he despises students who can answer while sleeping."
I turned.
"How remarkably specific."
Balthazar returned to his book.
"You'll understand."
---
I understood forty-nine minutes later.
Professor Layton Ambre was a thin man dressed in dark blue robes with sleeves so immaculate they suggested either powerful magic or a complete refusal to touch ordinary life.
His classroom contained thirty-two students arranged in rising rows.
No magical displays.
No decorative crystals.
Only blackboards.
Books.
Chalk.
And a professor who looked at the world as though it had submitted inadequate footnotes.
I liked him immediately.
Then he began lecturing.
"An argument is not strengthened merely because its conclusion is correct."
Good.
"Correct conclusions can arise from defective premises, incomplete evidence or invalid inference."
Still good.
"The purpose of methodological reasoning is not to produce answers. It is to determine when an answer deserves confidence."
Very good.
I lasted twenty-eight minutes.
That was respectable.
The problem was not Layton.
The problem was Zack Ryder's training from yesterday, my ribs, the medication Elisabeth had ordered me to take and the fact that I had spent half the night wondering what Balthazar's silver library credential could actually open.
My eyes closed.
Not intentionally.
Mostly.
I heard chalk.
Pages.
Layton speaking about witness convergence.
Then nothing.
A piece of chalk struck my desk.
I woke without moving my head.
Silence.
Thirty-one students were looking at me.
Professor Ambre stood at the front.
His chalk supply had decreased by one.
"Raymond."
"Yes."
"Were you asleep?"
I considered the political landscape.
"No."
Someone laughed.
Layton did not.
"Then repeat my last statement."
There are moments when lying requires effort disproportionate to the expected return.
"I was asleep."
More laughter.
Layton folded his hands.
"How refreshing."
"Thank you."
"It was not praise."
"That seems to happen frequently here."
A girl two rows down covered her mouth.
Layton's eyes sharpened.
"If seven independent witnesses provide the same account of an event, does agreement significantly increase the probability that their account is true?"
Simple question.
Too simple.
"No."
The room quieted.
Layton smiled without warmth.
"Explain."
"Independent according to whom?"
A pause.
I sat straighter.
My ribs objected.
"If they truly observed the same event independently, from sufficient positions, without contamination, shared incentive or common source, then convergence matters. But your question establishes only that they gave the same account."
Layton said nothing.
I continued.
"Seven witnesses can repeat one lie more convincingly than one witness. Quantity does not manufacture independence."
His expression changed.
Not approval.
I had somehow annoyed him more.
Excellent.
He turned to the board.
"Suppose the seven witnesses were separated immediately after the event."
"Still insufficient."
"Why?"
"Shared incentive may predate separation."
"Suppose none knew one another."
"Common authority. Common prejudice. Same obstructed viewing angle. Same person feeding them the wrong interpretation before separation."
Layton tapped the chalk against his palm.
"Suppose five saw a man leave a room carrying a bloody knife."
A few students shifted.
"And two saw the victim alive shortly before."
"What conclusion do you draw?"
"That a man left a room with a bloodied knife."
A student laughed.
Layton did not.
"Not murder?"
"No."
"Why?"
"You asked what the evidence establishes."
"What would you investigate?"
"The blood. The knife. The victim. The room. Whether there was another exit. Whether the witnesses saw the man enter. Whether the blood is even the victim's."
Layton stared at me.
The admissions files appeared uninvited in my thoughts.
Seventeen failures.
Medical findings.
A presumed mechanism.
A presumed culprit.
Evidence.
Premise.
Conclusion.
Layton asked:
"And if the man confessed?"
"Why?"
His eyebrows moved.
"Why did he confess?"
"Yes."
The class was completely silent now.
Layton placed the chalk down.
"You sleep in my class again, Raymond, and I will move your desk beside mine."
"Professor, threats this early in our relationship—"
"Again."
"Yes, sir."
I lasted until the bell awake.
Barely.
As students filed out, Balthazar passed my desk.
He had apparently taken the course too.
He did not stop.
He simply said:
"Told you."
I hated competent people.
---
Foundations of Close Combat began at second bell.
The broken-nosed instructor from yesterday stood in the center of the hall.
Eulalie was already there.
She had tied her hair back.
No veil.
No religious coat.
Training clothes.
Her face remained calm when I approached.
"You're late."
"I'm thirty seconds early."
"Zack considers that late."
I stopped.
"Zack?"
She nodded toward the instructor.
"Zack Ryder."
At last.
A name.
Zack heard us.
"Brome. Raymond. Floor."
Raymond.
Not Student 173.
Progress.
Perhaps.
He placed two chalk marks ten feet apart.
"No sparring today."
I smiled.
Eulalie looked relieved.
Zack saw both reactions.
"That's not good news."
Of course.
"Raymond. Footwork."
He pointed to the first mark.
"To there. Forward. Back. Angle. Reset."
I stared.
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Children can do that."
"Then perhaps you'll finally succeed."
Eulalie looked away.
I heard the laugh anyway.
"Brome."
"Yes?"
"You decide the direction."
Her smile disappeared.
Mine returned.
Zack stepped back.
"No Chessmaster."
I moved.
Forward.
Back.
Eulalie pointed right.
Angle.
Reset.
Left.
Reset.
Again.
Again.
Again.
It was humiliating.
No cleverness.
No attack.
Nothing to solve.
Just whether my body could repeat an efficient movement without the left side tightening, the shoulder compensating or my stance lengthening as fatigue accumulated.
By the fifteenth repetition, my ribs were warm.
Twenty-fifth, uncomfortable.
Thirty-seventh, I began shortening the recovery step.
Zack noticed.
"Again."
I corrected.
Forty-two.
Sweat ran down my spine.
Eulalie pointed left.
I moved.
Too wide.
"Again."
I glared.
She did not care.
"Again."
"You're enjoying this."
"Left."
Cruel.
I moved.
Zack eventually stopped us.
My breathing had deepened.
Not desperate.
Enough.
"Better."
I nearly asked whether he meant it.
Then realized I cared.
Disgusting.
He turned toward Eulalie.
"Your turn."
Her exercise was different.
Three padded targets.
Each carried a colored marker.
Green.
Yellow.
Red.
Zack called situations.
"Unarmed opponent. Retreating. Green."
Eulalie touched.
Controlled.
"Armed opponent. Advancing. Red."
She struck the target sharply.
No hesitation.
"Unknown hand position. Civilian behind you. Yellow."
She began—
Paused.
Half a beat.
Then touched.
Zack frowned.
Again.
He changed situations faster.
Not technique.
Decision.
When the condition justified force, Eulalie had to commit.
When it did not, she had to withhold.
The weakness from yesterday appeared again.
Not fear of fighting.
Fear of making the wrong choice and discovering too late that she could not undo it.
Once, on a red call, her fist stopped an inch before full contact.
Zack said nothing.
Just reset the target.
Again.
She struck properly.
Her jaw remained tight afterward.
I watched.
Did not interpret further.
There were doors in people you did not open merely because you had found the handle.
After training, I sat on the bench.
My arms felt heavier than the exercise deserved.
Eulalie approached.
"You look exhausted."
"Cruel observation."
She hesitated.
Then held out one hand.
"What?"
"Revigor."
The word meant nothing to me.
Yet.
"What does it do?"
"Helps."
"Suspiciously broad."
"Do you want it or not?"
I extended my arm.
Her fingers touched my wrist.
Warmth moved through me.
Not heat exactly.
More like the sensation after waking from unusually deep sleep—the strange moment when muscles remember they are not obligated to be tired.
My breathing eased.
The ache in the thighs faded.
Some of the weight behind my eyes lifted.
Not gone.
Reduced.
I looked at her.
Eulalie had gone paler.
Barely.
Her shoulders lowered.
Mana.
Chessmaster saw the flow immediately: not enormous output, but a rapid expenditure relative to what she carried.
I withdrew my hand.
"Enough."
"I wasn't finished."
"Yes, you were."
Her eyes sharpened.
"You don't decide that."
"No. Your mana does."
Silence.
Zack had come close enough to hear.
He looked at her.
"Again?"
Eulalie frowned.
"What?"
"You used too much."
"It was minor fatigue."
"Exactly."
She looked annoyed.
Zack pointed toward me.
"He didn't need full restoration."
"I didn't fully restore him."
"You tried."
Eulalie said nothing.
Zack's voice remained flat.
"Your gift is not permission to spend yourself badly."
That struck somewhere deeper than technique.
She looked away.
I flexed my hand.
"Revigor."
She nodded.
"Restoration?"
"Vigor. Recovery. Health support."
"And the opposite?"
Her eyes returned to mine.
Interesting.
"Devigor."
"What does that do?"
"Opposite things."
"Fatigue."
"Yes."
"Weakness?"
"Yes."
"Damage?"
A pause.
"Yes."
Zack cut in.
"Enough."
Fair.
Eulalie pulled her sleeve down over her wrist.
I had learned more than she intended.
And still not enough to classify.
Good.
Across the hall, Xavier finished a drill.
Zack watched him.
Then:
"Duverger. Stay."
Xavier looked toward me by reflex.
Caught himself.
Looked back at Zack instead.
Better.
Zack waited until the other students moved away.
"You use Flow."
"Yes."
"Too much."
Xavier's expression tightened.
"I fought without it yesterday."
"For one round."
"I won."
"Congratulations. I once won a card game drunk. Neither event deserves a doctrine."
I liked Zack more every day.
Xavier crossed his arms.
"What do you want?"
"To train you."
That silenced him.
Not me.
Him.
"Personally?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you've got perception most fighters would kill for, and if nobody teaches you to fight without it, someday someone will blind it and kill you anyway."
Xavier glanced toward me again.
This time I did not look away.
I also did not nod.
His choice.
He turned back.
"What would training involve?"
Zack's expression almost became pleasant.
"Pain."
Xavier sighed.
"Raymond already used that curriculum."
"Then you'll recognize the textbook."
He thought for several seconds.
"I'll do it."
Zack nodded once.
Done.
No ceremony.
No permission from me.
Good.
I hated it.
Good.
---
The first punch of the afternoon belonged to Arkad Sol.
I did not know that yet.
Xavier and I were crossing the western service corridor between the training complex and residential wing when voices reached us.
Not shouting.
Worse.
The low private tone people use when they know no authority is nearby.
The passage ran behind the old laundry building.
Tall brick on one side.
Retaining wall on the other.
No classrooms.
No windows at ground height.
Excellent place for commerce unapproved by accountants.
Three older students occupied the narrow section ahead.
Two boys.
One girl.
All larger than the pair facing them.
A red-haired boy stood in front.
Jaw set.
Fists tight.
Beside him, a dark-haired girl held herself very still.
A long bow case lay on the ground behind one of the older students.
Not hers anymore, apparently.
The larger boy in front extended his hand.
"Last time."
The red-haired boy answered:
"No."
"Three meal tokens."
"No."
"You're new."
"Yes."
"You don't understand how this corridor works."
"I understand theft."
Ah.
There was Arkad.
I knew immediately, though we had never met.
Nobody else could make justice sound so exhausting.
Xavier slowed.
I continued walking.
"Raymond."
"Yes?"
"You see this?"
"I possess eyes."
"You're going to ignore it?"
"I was considering the educational value."
The older girl noticed us.
"Keep walking."
I smiled.
"I was."
She stepped sideways, blocking the passage.
"That means around."
"Ah."
I looked at the wall.
Then back at her.
"Architecture has betrayed us."
Xavier muttered something impolite.
The red-haired boy looked over.
No recognition.
Good.
The quiet girl did look.
Not at our faces first.
Hands.
Feet.
Distance.
Archer.
Interesting.
The largest of the three extortionists turned toward Raymond.
Me.
"Problem?"
"Several."
He stepped closer.
"Want one more?"
There are men who mistake proximity for intimidation.
An understandable error.
Usually brief.
He reached for my shoulder.
I moved before he touched.
Not fast.
Not like before the Abomination.
Enough.
My right foot slipped outside his.
Left hand guided his reaching arm across.
I dropped my center, hooked behind his ankle and drove my shoulder—not into his chest, but past his line of balance.
His foot had nowhere to recover.
He went down hard enough to lose dignity, not consciousness.
My ribs complained immediately.
I stepped back.
Hands open.
"That," I said, breathing carefully, "was my entire contribution. I am under medical instruction not to become ambitious."
Xavier passed me.
The second boy swung.
Too wide.
Xavier moved outside it.
No Flow.
I could tell.
His eyes followed shoulders and hips rather than the invisible environment around them.
Zack would be delighted.
The punch missed.
Xavier planted.
Short strike to the body.
Controlled.
The boy folded enough to lose momentum.
The older girl came from Xavier's blind side.
He saw her late.
Her forearm caught his shoulder.
He stumbled into the wall.
Not elegant.
Good.
Real fights rarely respect reputations.
She pushed forward.
Xavier covered.
Took one hit against the arm.
Another brushed his cheek.
He retreated two steps.
Then stopped retreating.
Rhythm changed.
Not Flow.
Training.
She expected another backward step.
He stepped in instead.
Caught the attacking arm close to the elbow.
Turned his hips.
Moved her past him.
No throw.
Just enough to send her stumbling into the larger boy trying to stand.
Space opened.
The second boy rushed again.
Xavier breathed.
Waited.
Too long, I thought.
Then understood.
He wanted commitment.
The boy planted his front foot.
Xavier shifted.
Caught the shoulder.
Blocked the leg.
Turned.
The boy hit the ground beside his friend.
Xavier stayed upright.
Barely.
His chest rose and fell hard.
The girl recovered.
Looked at the two boys.
Looked at Xavier.
Then at me.
Smart enough to calculate.
"Not worth it."
She picked up nothing.
Started away.
Anata spoke for the first time.
"No."
The girl stopped.
Quiet voice.
Cold.
"The bow."
Everyone looked at the case.
One of the fallen boys had kicked it aside earlier.
The older girl stared at Anata.
Then nudged the case toward her with one boot.
Anata picked it up.
Checked the locks.
Checked the limbs inside.
Only then did she look at the three students.
Not angry.
That would have been simpler.
Memorizing.
I recognized the habit.
Dangerous.
Arkad stepped toward the departing group.
"You're going to report yourselves."
Xavier stared at him.
I almost laughed.
The largest bully did.
"You're insane."
Arkad's jaw tightened.
"They stole from first-years."
"They tried to take three meal tokens," Xavier said.
"That's theft."
"Yes."
"So they should be punished."
"Probably."
"Then we take them to an instructor."
The older students kept walking.
Arkad started after them.
Anata caught his sleeve.
One hand.
No words.
He stopped.
Looked at her.
She shook her head.
A full argument apparently occurred between their faces.
Anata won.
Arkad turned back, furious at the entire moral structure of reality.
I liked him immediately.
Which was unfortunate.
Xavier touched his cheek.
"Are you always like this?"
Arkad stared.
"Like what?"
"Ready to declare war over three meal tokens."
"It wasn't about the tokens."
"Of course not."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I know someone exactly like you."
Both looked at me.
I was offended.
"Unfair comparison."
Arkad pointed at the student disappearing around the corner.
"They'll do it again."
"Probably," I said.
"Then why are you joking?"
"Because anger is not a strategy."
His face reddened.
"Doing nothing is worse."
"I didn't say do nothing."
"What would you do?"
I looked down the corridor.
No cameras that I could see.
No faculty wards obvious.
Three older students had selected a blind passage and a minor demand.
Small enough victims might pay rather than report.
Repeated offense likely.
Institutional blind spot.
Interesting.
Then I stopped.
Not my investigation.
Not yet.
"I would first learn their names."
A voice behind us said:
"Arkad!"
The red-haired boy turned.
Relief crossed his face.
The quiet girl relaxed by perhaps half an inch.
A boy hurried into the passage carrying three books and an expression of exhausted familiarity.
Balthazar Quell stopped.
Looked at Arkad.
Anata.
The two students on the ground getting up.
Xavier's reddening cheek.
Then me.
Silence.
I smiled.
"Of course."
Balthazar frowned.
"What?"
"You're my roommate."
Arkad stared between us.
"You know Balthazar?"
"Since breakfast."
Anata looked at me differently now.
Balthazar put the books down.
"What happened?"
Arkad immediately said:
"They were extorting us."
Anata said:
"He followed them."
Balthazar closed his eyes.
"Of course he did."
"I wasn't going to pay."
"I didn't say you should."
"They took Anata's bow."
Balthazar's eyes opened.
Cold now.
He checked the case.
"Damaged?"
Anata shook her head.
Only then did Balthazar look at the departing students.
Loyalty.
Not announced.
Prioritized.
Good.
Xavier extended a hand.
"Xavier."
"Balthazar."
"Roommate?"
"Yes."
Arkad looked at Xavier.
"Wait."
Xavier already knew what was coming.
"No."
"You're Xavier?"
"Yes."
"Room thirty-one?"
"Yes."
Arkad grinned.
"My roommate."
Xavier looked at me.
I smiled.
"Enjoy."
"This is your fault somehow."
"Deeply flattering."
Arkad extended his hand enthusiastically.
"Arkad Sol."
Xavier shook it.
"Xavier."
Anata did not extend hers.
"Anata LeeRoy."
Barely above conversational volume.
Raymond.
I gave my name.
She looked at me.
"I heard."
"Gossip?"
"No."
A pause.
"You dropped him badly."
I looked toward the larger student now disappearing.
"He'll survive."
"I know."
Something about the way she said it told me she had considered the alternatives.
Balthazar collected his books.
"We should leave before staff arrive and decide everyone standing is equally guilty."
Pragmatic.
Very.
Arkad objected immediately.
"We should report them."
"We can report them after we know their names."
Arkad opened his mouth.
Stopped.
He looked at me.
I said nothing.
Balthazar had reached the same conclusion without assistance.
Good.
People were much more useful when they did not require assembly.
---
That evening, Elisabeth defeated Nexus without entering it.
She had spread books over the Sierra's cabin table.
Rex occupied the floor beside my chair.
Mira was sleeping with her head on Xavier's boot.
Elisabeth held up a thick brown volume as soon as we entered.
"I found it."
I stopped.
Words like that should never be trusted around Marduk.
"Define it."
"The codes."
Xavier closed the cabin door.
"What codes?"
She pointed toward Devil's Deceptions.
The leather-bound journal lay open beside three copied pages.
Not missing pages.
Existing ones.
Marduk's compact handwriting covered the margins.
Numbers appeared between paragraphs.
Sequences we had previously assumed might be dates, coordinates or cipher fragments.
Elisabeth pushed the brown volume toward me.
NEXUS ACADEMY — RETIRED COLLECTION INDEX, FORTY-SECOND EDITION
I stared.
"How did you get this?"
She smiled.
"They wouldn't let me into the library."
"Yes."
"So I bought one."
I looked at Xavier.
He shrugged.
"She spent two hours at secondhand bookshops."
"You walked?"
"Some."
"Elisabeth."
"I rested."
"You—"
She held up her poisoned hand.
Gloved.
"Would you like to discuss autonomy again?"
I sat down.
"Wonderful weather today."
"Thought so."
She opened the old index.
The classification system was different.
Current Nexus references used faculty letters, collection numbers and authorization marks.
The old system used building origin, acquisition year, category and shelf sequence.
Marduk's numbers—
Matched.
Not all.
Enough.
I leaned closer.
Elisabeth pointed.
"Here."
A notation from Devil's Deceptions:
IV-17-302
Then the old catalog.
IV — pre-unification alchemical collection.
17 — acquisition cycle.
302 — item sequence.
Xavier frowned.
"So Marduk was citing books?"
"Or records," Elisabeth said.
"Or boxes," I added.
"Or archived acquisitions."
She nodded.
"The system was replaced decades ago."
"When?"
"Thirty-six years ago."
Marduk had known Nexus long before me.
Long before Xavier.
Long before Abraham had decided guilt could be filed under medical certainty.
I thought of Balthazar's silver-bordered library credential.
Legacy catalogs.
Interesting.
Not answer.
Door.
Elisabeth tapped the book again.
"There's more."
Naturally.
She turned several pages of Devil's Deceptions.
A different code appeared near the bottom of a paragraph.
Short.
Too short for the old catalog system.
She had written substitutions beside it.
"You decoded that?"
"It was barely encrypted."
"How insulting."
"I think he wanted it found."
That was more worrying.
Marduk rarely made important things easy unless the ease itself was a trap.
Letters resolved.
Words appeared.
A title.
ELIXIR OF THE SECOND PULSE
Xavier leaned forward.
"What does it do?"
Elisabeth did not answer immediately.
She handed me the transcription.
I read.
Stabilization.
Mana pathways.
Damaged channels.
Tissue adaptation.
Integration between physical and magical structures.
Not restoration to perfection.
Not a miraculous increase in power.
Repair.
Compatibility.
A way to help a body stop fighting the magic forced through it.
My hand tightened around the paper.
Abomination.
My channels.
Elisabeth.
Her altered hand.
For one second I thought of Eulalie.
Small mana reserve.
No.
Different problem.
Second Pulse repaired damaged or unstable structures.
It did not create capacity that had never existed.
Good.
No miracle.
Only another tool we could not afford.
"We can make this?"
Xavier asked.
"No," Elisabeth said.
Naturally.
"Why not?"
"Because Marduk apparently believed recipes were improved by ingredients no ordinary person can obtain."
I looked at the list.
Some names I recognized.
Others were archaic.
Two had no obvious modern equivalent.
One carried a notation beside it.
Not quantity.
A catalog number.
Old Nexus classification.
I looked at Elisabeth.
She was already smiling.
"You see it."
"Yes."
Xavier looked between us.
"I hate when you do that."
One of the formula components was not described inside Devil's Deceptions.
Marduk had cited something else.
Something stored—or once stored—at Nexus.
I closed the journal.
Not tonight.
The sequence mattered.
We had an old classification system.
A formula.
A reference.
And somewhere in my Academy dormitory sat a pragmatic young alchemist whose family had paid enough money to inherit access to legacy catalogs.
I thought of Balthazar Quell.
Then Arkad.
Anata.
Eulalie.
Zack Ryder.
Layton Ambre.
Five people who had entered my day without being invited.
Chessmaster shifted quietly.
Names.
Connections.
Uses.
Doors.
Pieces.
I stopped it before the board finished forming.
Not pieces.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
Elisabeth noticed my silence.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That usually means something."
"Apparently everyone has decided this."
I stood and took the copied catalog code.
Rex lifted his head.
Tomorrow I would ask Balthazar Quell a very innocent question.
A question about an obsolete library system.
Nothing more.
Because the easiest way to frighten a sensible man was to begin with the truth.
And the easiest way to lose one was to pretend you had not already calculated what his name might open.
I looked once more at the formula Marduk had left behind.
ELIXIR OF THE SECOND PULSE.
Below it, in the old man's handwriting, one final line sat beside the catalog reference.
Not encrypted.
Of course.
Marduk had always been cruelest when he wanted to be understood.
If you need this, then something has already gone very wrong.
I stared at it.
Elisabeth did too.
Xavier broke the silence.
"Well."
I folded the page.
"Yes."
"What now?"
Outside the cabin window, Nexus rose over Catington in tiers of silver light.
Somewhere beneath those towers sat catalogs the Academy no longer used.
Records students were not supposed to see.
And perhaps the missing half of a recipe written by a dead man who had spent his entire life turning secrets into delayed explosions.
"Now?" I said.
I smiled.
"Now I attend class."
Xavier stared.
Elisabeth stared.
Even Rex seemed unconvinced.
I put the paper inside my coat.
"Don't look so disappointed."
"Raymond," Elisabeth said.
"Yes?"
"You're going to the library."
"Eventually."
"The restricted library."
"Allegedly."
"With Balthazar."
"Possibly."
"You met him today."
"A very promising relationship."
She rubbed her forehead.
Xavier sighed.
I headed for the door.
Behind me, Elisabeth called:
"Raymond."
I stopped.
"What?"
"Don't turn him into a key."
My hand stayed on the door.
There are sentences that offend because they are unfair.
Others because they arrive before you have finished lying to yourself.
I looked back.
Elisabeth met my eyes.
No accusation.
Worse.
Expectation.
I thought of Balthazar checking Anata's bow before asking who had thrown the first punch.
Arkad furious because three meal tokens could become thirty tomorrow.
Anata memorizing faces.
Eulalie spending too much mana because someone else was tired.
Xavier accepting a mentor without waiting for my permission.
Different people.
Different weaknesses.
Different reasons for staying.
Not mine.
I opened the door.
"I'll ask him," I said.
Elisabeth waited.
"And?"
"If he says no…"
A pause.
Old Raymond had several answers.
Pressure.
Debt.
Information.
Leverage.
Balthazar's family.
His friends.
His access.
Chessmaster could probably find a route.
I hated how quickly those possibilities appeared.
I let them die.
"…then he says no."
Elisabeth nodded.
Nothing triumphant.
No smile.
Good.
I left the Sierra.
Behind me lay Marduk's journal.
Ahead waited Nexus.
And somewhere between the two, apparently, I was expected to learn the most exhausting discipline ever invented.
Asking permission.