Chapter 106 — THREE HUNDRED METERS

CHAPTER 100 — THREE HUNDRED METERS

Leon searched for his own name beneath the news report.

At first, he thought he'd opened the wrong page. The old Shiri on his uncle's desk displayed the image in fits and starts; some letters dissolved before they finished forming, while others lingered over one another. The ticking of the wall clock mingled with the faint crackle inside the device. Leon wiped the screen with his finger. Nothing changed where his finger had cleared it.

Percy Grant was alive.

The small image attached to the report showed a hospital bed. The sheet was white. Familiar faces stood around it. The image had been taken from so far away that he couldn't tell whether Percy's eyes were open. But the headline was clear enough. The whole city was talking about the return of the boy it had believed dead.

Leon closed the page. Opened it again.

He found another report. Then a third.

The same name. The same result.

"No."

His voice died before the thick curtain drawn across the window. He wasn't allowed to speak loudly in his uncle's secret house. He wasn't allowed to open the window in the evenings. He wasn't allowed to turn on a light when he went into the corridor, show his face to the servant who brought his meals, or activate his own Shiri. The surname that had made people rise to their feet only days before now made them lock their doors more tightly.

He'd thought he could endure it.

He'd thought he could endure it knowing Percy was dead.

He enlarged the image. This time, he could make out Galahad. He stood near the bed. Leon remembered the moment Galahad had looked at him by the lake; remembered that what had made him start running wasn't the anger on that face, but the fact that nothing of anger remained. There had been a reason for that look. Leon had seen it. He'd sent the lightning into Percy's chest himself.

He pressed his fingers against the edge of the device.

"I killed you."

When the device cracked, the headline split in two. Percy's name remained on one half of the image, the news that he was alive on the other. Leon hurled the screen to the floor. Then he swept the glasses off the desk; the chair struck the wall behind him. When the noise came out louder than he'd expected, he paused. There were footsteps in the corridor.

His uncle opened the door.

The man looked at the floor, then at Leon's face. He saw the thin cut on the boy's hand. He approached neither the damage nor the boy.

"What have you done?"

"He's alive."

His uncle didn't answer for a while.

"I heard."

Leon's expression changed more than it had when he'd first seen the news.

"You heard?"

"The whole city heard."

"You didn't tell me."

"What would you have done if I had?"

Leon tried to push past him. His uncle didn't close the door; he simply placed his body in the opening. When lightning crackled around Leon's fingers, the man's gaze hardened.

"You will not use magic in this house."

"Move."

"They've checked the street across from the door twice. They're pulling apart the stones in your family's old house. Your face is posted at the border gates. The first person who sees you in the street won't see a nobleman's son. They'll see the boy who attacked Holar Jun's grandson."

Leon breathed in and out. He'd clenched his jaw so tightly that for a while, he couldn't get a word out.

"I need to see him."

"No."

"Just—"

"No."

The second no was quieter than the first. Leon noticed that the man who used to smile at him no longer met his eyes. His family's friends, teachers, servants, doormen; one by one, all their expressions had changed. Meanwhile, Percy's name appeared in a few more places every day.

His uncle looked at the broken Shiri.

"His being alive doesn't erase your crime. Make sure you understand that too."

Leon raised his head. For a moment, he looked ready to smash everything in the room again. Then he stepped back and sat on the bed. His uncle thought he'd calmed down. Before closing the door, he said he'd bring food. Leon didn't answer.

The door was locked.

Leon looked at the piece of screen on the floor that was still lit. In the image, Holar's hand rested in Percy's hair.

That night, he made his first plan.

At the end of it, Percy would die again.

He hadn't yet decided where he'd lay his head, how he'd find food, or who he'd hide from the next morning. But he'd decided on the ending. He thought that ought to count as a beginning.

His first plan lived for three days.

The night he managed to leave his uncle's house, he'd thought he could approach the academy. He'd pulled his hood low, changed his walk, and covered one side of his face with an old cloth. Thinking the guards were only looking for faces had made him feel prepared.

There was a changing of the guard at the end of the street. Seals checking Orin signatures flashed once each in the air, silently reading the Shiri records of passersby. Leon watched from around a corner. He could see the wall of his old school. He couldn't even stand in front of it.

When he returned, his shoes were covered in mud. His uncle didn't ask where he'd been. He simply fastened the second lock on the door.

His next plan didn't involve the academy. He drew the route to Percy's house. Then he saw the checkpoint at the beginning of that road and tore up the paper. For his third plan, he sent word to an old acquaintance. No reply came. Two days later, when he saw a unit of guards leaving that acquaintance's family home, he realized a reply had been given.

Weeks passed. Leon's anger didn't fade, but its loud expression stopped being useful. Shouting didn't open doors. Punching walls didn't make him stronger. Every object he broke was one less thing he could use in his hiding place the next day.

One evening, he found an old photograph of his mother. On its back was the date of a ceremony he'd attended as a child. He'd been seated in the middle, with the adults standing around him. They all looked certain of his future. Leon held the photograph for a long time. He didn't admit that he missed his mother. Or his father. Because longing would force him to see the part his own actions had played, he found other names for both.

What I've lost, he called them.

What was taken from me.

The things Percy took.

Over time, staying in his uncle's house became less about protection and more about hiding. The servants changed. Meals began to be left outside his door. One night, he overheard a conversation about finding somewhere else for him. When he looked at his uncle the next morning, he didn't ask about it.

He left that night.

He took some food, a knife, a worn blanket, and a few sheets of paper. One was a copy of a training text distributed to schools of magic. No author was named. Its title marked the most useful thing Leon had left from the world he hated.

The resonance method.

Sense the Orin. Separate it. Purify it. Confirm its compatibility with your Core. Don't force an increase in quantity.

During the first months, he violated the final warning more often than the others. Patience wasn't easy when his stomach was empty, his hands too cold to close properly, and no bed waited for him. He sat at the foot of a rock for hours, trying to draw in the surrounding energy, cursing the method when he failed. Once, his nose bled. Another time, he shook all night. After that, he learned to reduce the amount.

The forest corrected his mistakes. It didn't do it by talking, the way teachers did.

By day, he hid from patrols; by night, he kept away from larger things. When the scent of a small creature he'd hunted drifted the wrong way, he abandoned his meal and ran. He learned that using lightning in the rain wasn't only an advantage, that light left a trail too, and that silence didn't always mean safety.

Years passed like that.

Leon's shoulders broadened. First, his old clothes grew too short; then they were replaced by clothes taken from other people. His Core developed. He could now run lightning between his fingers without preparation, but displaying it in the city for even a moment wouldn't change the fact that he was still wanted. As his power grew, the paths open to him did not multiply. He could enter certain trails faster and still couldn't pass through the same doors.

Occasionally, he slipped into human settlements and gathered news without giving his name. He learned that Percy was alive, growing up, continuing his education. He magnified every scrap of news that Clara was beside him. Other people's ordinary days became hours of questioning in Leon's hiding place.

Why could they laugh?

Why could they keep going?

Why hadn't what he'd done been the final sentence of their lives?

Sometimes, he left the forest and looked at the city's distant towers. Thousands of people moved behind those walls. Even when Leon couldn't see him, Holar Jun's presence stood like a gate within them. Every time Leon approached that gate, he received the same answer.

You cannot pass here.

After a while, he stopped trying to enter the city and began thinking about the day Percy would come out.

The day he met Melanos, hunger wasn't the first thing pursuing Leon.

For some time, he'd been finding the same signs around him. Slashed bark, small bones caught in webs, a hollow vibration beneath his feet when he stepped on the ground. At first, he'd thought he was crossing spider territory. Later, he noticed that the spiders weren't so much living in the same place as watching the same place.

When he entered the narrow part of the rocks, the path closed behind him.

He understood from the sound first. No boulder had rolled down; a body had filled the passage. Leon turned and gathered lightning in his palm. He had to raise his head to make out the creature's face.

Melanos was covered in dark plates that resembled ancient stone. It had two large front claws; its other jointed limbs, folded against its sides, could at first be mistaken for pieces of armor. It was hard to tell where its arms ended and its defenses began. The creature's weight pressed into the ground, its shadow joining the two walls of the passage.

"You can't escape."

The words settled not in Leon's ears, but directly in his thoughts.

Leon looked at the stone wall behind him. Gauged the ledge above. If he jumped to the right, he wouldn't have room for a second move. The opening on the left was narrower than his body. Melanos watched him calculate; there was no need to hurry.

Leon extinguished the lightning in his hand.

"Kill me."

The creature tilted its head slightly.

"Why should I bother?"

The darkness on the rock shifted. At first, Leon thought his eyes were deceiving him. Then a spider descended. Then another. Every crack in the wall opened as if exhaling at once. Large, jointed legs settled on the stone. Behind them came smaller-looking bodies carrying the same dense pressure.

There weren't dozens. There weren't hundreds either.

Whichever way Leon looked, he saw a little more darkness unravel into another creature. Thousands of spiders filled the passage. The Core pressure of each was enough to seal off one of the little routes he used to escape. Creatures at the very limits of the Advanced class waited for a single movement from the larger being before him.

Leon's face twisted. He couldn't take back what he'd just said, but he didn't want its meaning to last this long.

"Wait."

Melanos didn't answer.

The first spider climbed onto the stone beside his foot.

"I can make you a King Monster."

The pressure changed at once.

The spiders withdrew. Not all at the same time; those in front flattened themselves against the ground, those behind climbed over one another, and a brief wave of movement rippled through the narrow passage. Leon's breath caught. His feet on the ground were no longer waiting for his decision.

Melanos's claw pressed against his chest and slammed him into the rock behind him.

"Did I hear you correctly?"

Leon opened his mouth to answer. No air entered. The claw loosened a little.

"You can make me a King Monster?"

Melanos's laughter didn't sound human. Leon's teeth knocked together; the legs of the spiders among the rocks quivered. The creature found it funny. Yet it hadn't withdrawn its claw. Amusement didn't mean a lack of interest.

"I don't have a death wish," Leon managed. "At least, if I can't help, you can kill me afterward. What have you got to lose?"

"Do you think you get to choose how you die?"

Leon swallowed.

"Even death has many kinds of pain, human."

One of the spiders on the rocks moved again. Leon didn't look at it. He felt that if he looked anywhere but into Melanos's eyes, the conversation would end.

"Resonance."

The creature's claw stayed where it was.

"Hunting more isn't the only way to increase the power inside you. You can take back what you release into your surroundings. Not just what belongs to you, but what can become compatible with you too."

This time, Melanos didn't laugh.

The forced smile on Leon's face found its first real foothold.

"Give me a little time."

At that moment, Leon didn't know who had created the method that had kept him alive for years. There was no author's name on the paper, worn along its folds. As he laid before another being the path Percy had opened for humanity, he didn't know he was using something left by the boy he hated.

Melanos didn't know either.

Still, it withdrew its claw.

By the end of the first lesson, Leon had almost died.

The moment Melanos learned to draw in the surrounding Orin, it increased the amount. The plates on its body parted, and the dark vibration leaking between them spread across every surface of the passage. Just as Leon thought it a success, Melanos's front claw crushed the stone beside him. Then all the energy reversed at once.

Leon threw himself to the ground. The wave passing over his head scraped the web-covered rock face. The spiders scattered; some were buried beneath stones before they could move. When Melanos's eyes turned toward him, Leon thought not about his promise, but about which warning he'd just forgotten to give.

"You can't absorb it without checking compatibility."

"Are you giving me orders?"

"Listen if you don't want to die."

Once the sentence left his mouth, neither of them moved for a while. Leon realized taking it back would be worse. He placed a hand against his own chest and gathered a tiny amount of Orin. He produced no lightning. He showed the point where the external flow entered his Core.

"Start with this."

Melanos watched the energy in Leon's palm for a long time. It could kill him in a single motion if it wanted. But killing him would also silence what it had yet to learn.

On the second attempt, it reduced the amount.

On the third, it understood why Leon had spoken of purification.

In the days that followed, the lessons consisted more of waiting than talking. Power had already been accumulating inside Melanos for a long time. Years of hunting, crystals swallowed, battles fought; all of it had piled up before the same boundary. Leon wasn't giving it a new lifetime. He was showing it another way to use what it had stored.

The method had been written for humans. Melanos's Core didn't respond like a human Core. Leon made a series of mistakes in learning that. For some, he was punished. For others, he was simply kept in front of a rock for days. During that time, he also learned the value of a single meal after starvation, and that a monster that didn't kill him couldn't be called his friend.

Even so, he didn't go back.

When Melanos developed, he would develop too. He thought he could confront the doors he couldn't enter in the city with a larger gate of his own. That great being might be smaller than Holar. But it was larger than Percy. For now, that was the only difference Leon's calculations required.

Melanos, meanwhile, was learning things the human hadn't explained. As it learned to read the flow of external Orin, it began to distinguish the traces its own presence left in the surroundings. Increasing its power wasn't the same as displaying all of it. It calmed the flows through its webs, dispersed the pressure it left at hunting sites, and sometimes carried an aura below its true level for days.

This wasn't invisibility against a powerful observer. Careful examination could reveal the pressure it concealed. But it gave the observer a false first impression. In a forest with hundreds of separate traces, that could be enough to make a gaze pass over it.

Leon understood its value before Melanos did.

"Hide that," he said one night.

The creature turned to him.

"What I am?"

"What you're beginning to become."

Melanos's eyes narrowed in the darkness. For the first time, it looked at Leon as something more than food with a lesson to teach.

After Belar's grave, the remaining mission was no longer the same mission for any of the six.

Four wolves and six Nevr. William wrote them on separate lines; since no one wanted the numbers spoken aloud, he simply turned his notebook toward Percy. Percy nodded. Along a route where they would once have argued about how quickly they were progressing on the way back, they now stopped more often and checked the area again after every attack.

Marcus crouched beside the first wolf. The others didn't move. He checked its breathing, its shadow, whether any Orin still moved inside it. Then he raised his head.

"It's over."

Only then did William make a mark in his notebook.

They found the last Nevr in a narrow streambed. Arthur didn't block its way; he left it a route to retreat. When the Nevr chose that route, it met William's ice. Percy didn't send his fire upward. Clara refracted her light across the stream's surface; as the creature's attack turned the wrong way, Marcus moved behind it.

After the victory, Percy looked at the water for a while. A small branch drifting down the stream had become caught between two rocks. He freed it with his hand and released it into the current. Clara saw what he did; she attached no meaning to it, asked no questions. She simply came to stand beside him.

When all the mission targets had been checked off, Arthur drew breath to say something. Then he saw Percy's face and merely adjusted the pack on his back.

"Let's go home."

This time, no one argued.

The pup spent most of the journey back in Clara's arms. Sometimes it woke and made a small sound, settling again when Clara placed her fingers on its head. Every time Percy looked at it, he remembered Belar. Once, he reached out; the pup nudged his finger with its nose. A brief smile formed on Percy's face. He didn't take the pup into his own arms.

"Let it sleep," he said.

"It already is," Clara replied.

Percy nodded. He wasn't sure he understood what he'd said either.

The sky was clear when they reached the academy gates. The city continued its morning, unaware of what they'd experienced in the forest. Chairs were being carried outside a shop, students ran to avoid being late, and a child tossed crumbs from his bread to the birds between the paving stones. Percy looked at that child longer than he needed to.

Eleanor met them at the entrance.

Her first act wasn't to ask for a report. She counted all six with her eyes. Then she approached Clara. When she saw the pup in her daughter's arms, her smile changed; Clara shook her head, and the question remained unspoken. Eleanor smoothed her daughter's hair with one hand and checked the pup's breathing with the other.

"Congratulations," she said. "You're back."

Arthur tried to smile.

"We finished the mission too."

"We'll talk about that as well."

Holar waited a few steps back. When Percy approached him, they looked at each other for a while. Holar wore the expression of a headmaster interested in his grandson's report; it changed when his hand came to rest on Percy's shoulder.

"You're tired."

Percy nodded.

"Yes, Grandpa."

Holar pulled him close. Percy's first response was surprise. His second was to rest his head against Holar's chest. He didn't think about the students around them, the staff, or whether Arthur was watching. Holar asked nothing.

When Galahad's turn came, he placed a hand on the back of Percy's head.

"Your first mission."

"It's over."

"Yes."

Percy lightly tapped his brother's arm.

"Didn't you come out for some fresh air this time?"

Galahad's eyes flicked to Holar. Holar looked elsewhere.

"The air in the city is nice too."

The corner of Percy's mouth lifted. He didn't ask anything else. That morning, knowing certain things without hearing them was enough.

The paperwork was completed that afternoon. The evidence in the spatial ring was counted in front of the mission officers. William had recorded which encounter each piece came from. The small sample set aside for Helmea was kept separate. Before removing the ring, Percy pressed his hands together beneath the desk.

Thirty-five wolves. Twelve Nevr. One Helmea.

Seventy-five thousand AWE dollars and fifty thousand Awakening contribution points were credited to the team's total. The officer opened their new accounts and explained their access to the Mages' Specialty Store. Maps, protective items, field supplies; a catalog appeared on the desk.

Arthur leaned over it immediately. William checked the prices. Marcus turned to the page on protective equipment. Percy, meanwhile, was looking at the mission report beneath the new figures. He wanted to add another line. The officer had organized the entries by monster.

There was no place for Belar.

"We'll come back later," he said.

The officer gave them the catalog. Arthur was about to say something; he fell silent when Charlotte touched his shoulder.

When they came outside, Nathaniel was waiting at the top of the steps.

He held two packages.

"Let me say this first," he said. "One of these is mine."

Arthur looked at the packages.

"Which one?"

"The bigger one."

"They're the same size."

Nathaniel weighed them in his hands for a moment. Then looked at Percy.

"Then this is going to be a difficult choice."

Percy didn't laugh. Seeing that, Nathaniel held out one of the packages. He didn't ask what was wrong. He saw the empty space beside Percy, the tiny body Clara carried, and the exhaustion on everyone's faces.

"All right," he said more quietly. "Today, they're both yours."

Percy took the package.

He looked at Nathaniel's face.

"Do we look that bad?"

Nathaniel put aside every answer he'd prepared to make him laugh.

"A little."

Percy felt his eyes about to fill. He turned his head. As though he'd noticed nothing, Nathaniel put an arm around his shoulders.

"Come on. If it gets cold, I really will be upset."

For the first time that day, Percy breathed easily.

During the first few days, Percy didn't mention going out again.

They took the pup to the academy's animal care staff. Charlotte listened carefully to every explanation; Clara struggled to draw her hand away when she placed the little creature on the table. Percy stood by the door. When the caretaker said the pup was no longer alone, he nodded, but he didn't want to hear it as consolation.

Belar had been left alone.

The thought resurfaced somewhere in every quiet hour. Sometimes Percy returned to the same line while reading; sometimes he watched his friends in the garden without saying anything. Clara didn't fill all those silences with conversation. She sat beside him, opened her own book, and asked a question after a while if she had one. When Percy couldn't answer, she didn't close the book. Her staying there was enough.

After his checkups, Elizabeth Olsen called him to the training ground. Out of old habit, Percy readied his staff. Rather than taking a position opposite him, his teacher sat at one end of a bench.

"We won't be fighting today."

Suspicion crossed Percy's face.

"That usually means we will."

"Not today."

Percy sat beside her. They watched the targets on the field for a while. Other students' spells burst in the distance, and a teacher's impatient voice told them to repeat the exercise.

"I read your report," Olsen said.

Percy lowered his hands between his knees.

"Which part?"

"The part you wrote. I'll read William's too."

Percy laughed a little. William's report was longer than his own. That was hardly surprising.

Olsen continued.

"Defeating Helmea doesn't erase all the consequences of your decision to go there."

"I know."

"I don't want you to know. I want you to remember next time."

Percy's eyes left the targets.

"What if someone asks for help again next time?"

"First, you'll try to understand what they need. Then what you can do."

"What if they die while I'm waiting?"

Olsen didn't answer immediately. Percy disliked that silence. But he also understood that his teacher hadn't paused to find an easy sentence.

"I can't give you one answer that will be right in every situation," Olsen said at last. "And stay away from anyone who gives you one."

Percy looked down. His teacher didn't smooth his hair or pat his head. She simply stayed on the same bench a little longer.

"Still," she said after a while, "you should change a line in your report."

"Which one?"

"Your team didn't leave you alone. And you didn't send them entirely to the rear. You've written it as though you achieved the result on your own."

Percy frowned. Then remembered Clara's palm, Charlotte's trembling hands.

"I'll correct it."

"Do."

Olsen stood. Percy stood too.

"Tomorrow?" he asked.

His teacher took her staff in hand.

"Tomorrow, we'll fight."

Percy's mouth curved.

"I knew it."

As three weeks passed since the first mission, the rest of the class had also turned from the six friends' stories back to their own training.

Nathaniel wasn't the first to announce that Percy was recovering. He understood it when, one morning, Percy cut the sandwich placed before him in half and handed part of it back.

"You're giving me my own food?"

"I'm sharing."

"After stealing it."

"You gave it to me first."

Nathaniel considered this.

"There's a loophole in the process."

William stopped as he passed them.

"The loophole is that you think everything out loud."

Nathaniel watched him leave.

"The guy hands out criticism instead of greetings."

Percy laughed. As Nathaniel ate the rest of his sandwich, he made a point of not looking at him. If Percy caught him, he'd realize Nathaniel was trying to make him laugh. Once he realized that, he might thank him. Nathaniel didn't know how to end most serious conversations. Ending them by eating didn't work every time either.

That afternoon, Ethan and Daniel came to the training ground. Ethan set the second water container he carried in front of Percy. Daniel objected to the training plan before he'd even begun a proper conversation.

"Why are we repeating the last round?"

"Because you didn't finish it the first time," Percy said.

"We did."

"You fell apart in the last two steps."

Daniel turned to Ethan.

"Did he really see that?"

Ethan drank some water.

"Interesting that you still ask that question."

A short distance away, Clara was practicing range with Sophia and Amelia. Sophia was less concerned with whether her spheres hit the target than with their taking the wrong angle. Amelia reset her stance before every attempt, muttering to herself when she realized that rushing made her repeat the same mistake. Watching them, Lucas missed the attack signals coming from the side.

Nathaniel touched his shoulder.

"You're dead."

Lucas flinched.

"It's not your turn."

"Tell the monster."

Hearing this from a distance, Percy raised his head. Nathaniel was explaining his friend's mistake in his own words. And for the first time, he hadn't stopped afterward to explain how right he was. He'd directed Lucas back into position and returned to checking his own side.

Percy watched him for a while.

Nathaniel noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"If it's something nice, say it."

Percy grinned.

"Train."

"Guess it wasn't nice."

That evening, all sixteen classmates briefly tried to fit around the same table. When there weren't enough chairs, Theodore brought two from another classroom. Elias rearranged the plates. At the other end of the table, Adrian and Noah Bennett discussed the new courses that would be offered. Percy looked at every face. He'd long since made his choice when forming First Spark of Hope. That didn't mean he'd learned to grow apart from the others.

A piece of bread Nathaniel tossed from the other end of the table hit his shoulder.

"We're here."

Percy turned to him.

"I can see that."

"I was checking whether you could."

Charlotte picked up the crumb that had fallen in front of Percy. She looked at Nathaniel.

"Wasteful."

Nathaniel immediately held out his hand.

"Send it back."

Clara couldn't hold back her laughter. Arthur lowered his head toward the table. A few seconds later, Percy was laughing too. Laughing at the same things with the same people for years sometimes seemed more dependable than every plan for the future.

When Percy requested a second mission, Holar looked at the calendar first.

This time, he didn't interrupt his grandson at the first word. Percy had rested. He'd undergone checkups, resumed training with his teacher, and corrected the errors in his first mission report. Most importantly, he hadn't come alone to state what he wanted. Clara, William, Arthur, Charlotte, and Marcus stood beside him.

Eleanor turned the file on her desk around.

"Twenty Advanced green-eyed wolves."

Percy tilted his head slightly.

"Only twenty?"

Eleanor handed him the second page. Percy looked at the drawing. Then at the scale. Then held the paper a little farther away.

"They have a more developed form too?"

"Don't treat this as the same thing as the three-meter stage you encountered."

Arthur looked over Percy's shoulder.

"Six meters."

The corner of Galahad's mouth lifted.

"Your reading has developed."

Arthur raised his head.

"An important skill."

Eleanor explained the wolves' mature combat stage and the new mission area. She told them that the taller bodies didn't merely carry greater strength; they changed attack angles, leaping distances, and the behavior of the creatures around them. She indicated the designated corridor on the map. They were not to pursue prey that crossed into the restricted area.

Percy listened to that part in silence.

"The reward," Eleanor said, "is one hundred thousand AWE dollars and fifty thousand Awakening contribution points for the joint mission. Additional targets don't automatically change that reward."

William took notes.

Percy looked at the clearings on either side of the map.

"Let the second team come this time too."

Holar lifted his eyes from the calendar.

"Nathaniel and the others," Percy continued. "They can take the lower-level threats in the same area. While we clear the mature stages, they can get used to working together. We can split into two groups without losing contact."

"To finish faster?" Holar asked.

Percy was about to say yes. He paused.

"Not just for that."

Holar waited.

"We got used to each other in the field. They need to as well. I don't want them just walking behind us."

Galahad folded his arms. Eleanor turned the map again. This time, the question wasn't whether Percy wanted it, but how twelve students would operate in the same area.

The two teams would be organized separately. On this deployment, they were permitted to move in groups of six, not to take independent, widely separated routes. Contact intervals, the rendezvous point, the retreat signal, and casualty transfer were marked on the map. Percy listened to every item; he didn't interrupt the questions William added.

Holar asked one final question:

"Who will make the second group's decisions?"

Percy looked at his friends before answering.

"Nathaniel."

Arthur's eyebrow rose slightly. More than surprise, he was measuring the weight of that decision. Charlotte smiled a little. Marcus nodded.

Holar looked not at Percy, but at Galahad.

"Watch their preparations."

Galahad took the file.

"I will."

Percy couldn't hide his relief. Holar saw it, but didn't soften his next words.

"Trusting them doesn't mean you don't need to check on them. Checking on them doesn't mean making their decisions for them either."

Percy bowed his head.

"I understand, Grandpa."

Holar looked at him for a while.

"Make sure you really understand this time."

When Nathaniel heard his name, his first response was to look behind him.

Percy raised an eyebrow at that.

"Is there another Nathaniel?"

"I hope so. We could share some of the responsibilities."

Ethan Brooks, Daniel Crawford, Lucas Ferran, Sophia Mercer, and Amelia waited on the field. The six of them had stood side by side in the same class for years; still, they looked different when Percy lined them up before him in this order. Complaining together, running away together, sharing the same punishment—none of that took the place of being a team. From now on, one would have to call out what another missed, and change pace where another slowed down.

Nathaniel stopped joking.

"Really me?"

Percy nodded.

"You read the field. And you've learned to tell people what you see."

"Sometimes I tell them too much."

"We already know that."

Sophia laughed. This time, Nathaniel didn't turn to fire back at her. He stood a little straighter before Percy.

"All right."

Galahad watched the first drill from the sidelines. Ethan held the front line. Daniel used the distance he opened up, while Lucas reported targets coming from the right. Sophia would move with the protection target in the center; Amelia would disrupt the opposing side's ranged pressure and keep the retreat route open. Nathaniel's place was just behind the line. Far enough forward to see everyone, close enough to reach his friends if a decision went wrong.

On the first attempt, Ethan stopped too early. Daniel got caught behind him. Lucas waited to see what happened to the first target before announcing the second. In that brief silence, Amelia closed the wrong gap.

Nathaniel raised his hand before the attack signal came.

"Stop."

Galahad tilted his head.

"Why?"

"We're waiting for each other. But we're not waiting for the same thing."

Percy's expression changed. Nathaniel stepped between Ethan and Daniel and moved them a little farther apart. He told Lucas to report what he saw first and add the uncertain part afterward. Sophia chose her position again. Amelia switched her signaling marker to the other hand.

On the second attempt, they made mistakes again. But not the same mistakes.

Percy looked at Galahad. His brother was already looking at him.

"Are you waiting for my approval?"

"No."

"Liar."

Percy grinned. Galahad turned back to the field.

"Again."

Training continued for days. Some days, First Spark of Hope faced them; on others, Galahad adjusted the speed of the attacks himself. Several times, Percy opened his mouth to help Nathaniel, then closed it. Clara caught one of those moments.

"Aren't you going to tell him?"

"He saw it."

"He's looking at you."

"He still saw it."

Nathaniel really had seen it. A second later, he sent Sophia right; Amelia covered the space she left. Rather than meeting Arthur's pressure head-on, Ethan changed his angle. Daniel passed through the opening. This time, Lucas gave the warning in time.

Percy raised one hand and gave a thumbs-up.

Nathaniel was about to return the gesture when Galahad's attack passed in front of his face. He ducked clear. Straightening, he shouted at Percy:

"I'M NOT FALLING FOR THAT AGAIN!"

Percy couldn't hold back his laughter.

After the final drill, everyone sat on the ground. Before lying on his back, Ethan pulled his bag out from under Daniel's foot. Daniel objected. Lucas showed Sophia the final angle on the field. Nathaniel dropped down beside Amelia as she tried to repair a broken signal rod.

"You can do that later."

"If we look for it later, we won't find it."

Nathaniel took food from his pocket. Amelia raised her head.

"Now?"

"If we look for it later, we won't find it."

Amelia laughed and took the small piece. Nathaniel tossed the rest to Ethan. Percy quietly watched him share it out. As Nathaniel put the final piece he'd saved for himself into his mouth, he caught Percy's gaze.

"This one's mine."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face is getting too emotional."

"I could hit yours."

"Better."

Percy laughed. Nathaniel laughed too. The conversation was so ordinary that neither tried to remember it.

On the evening of their final preparation day, Nathaniel was the last to leave the field.

Normally, he reached any place with food before everyone else. This time, he picked up the water container Ethan had left behind, collected Lucas's markers, and made sure the rod Amelia had repaired wasn't lost. Percy interfered with none of it. He packed his own equipment, occasionally raising his head to look at him.

At last, Nathaniel set what he was carrying on the bench.

"I want to ask something."

"Ask."

"How much are you going to interfere tomorrow?"

Percy stopped pulling the zipper.

"How much do you think I should?"

Nathaniel grimaced.

"Don't do that. I ask a question, and then I have to solve yours too."

Percy's lips curved. Then he put his bag down to give a real answer.

"If you don't see a danger, I'll tell you. If you see it but can't deal with it, I'll help. But I won't choose all your moves for you."

Nathaniel sat at the other end of the bench.

"It'll be like the first camp."

"A little."

"We knew you wouldn't kill us."

Percy raised his head. Nathaniel hadn't said it as a joke. He looked at the empty field for a while. He remembered the first step he hadn't been able to take among the scorpions, how he'd shouted before entering the piranhas, and knowing, every time he was afraid, that someone would hear him.

"I know this time," he said. "It'll be different."

Percy sat beside him. He didn't tell Nathaniel to be brave. He waited for him to speak.

"When you picked me," Nathaniel continued, "I know you weren't just remembering the funny things I've done. But sometimes that's all anyone sees. So I talk. Then when I try to explain the other things I notice, they think I'm joking."

Percy looked at one of the broken targets on the field.

"Lucas listened to you today."

"Yes."

"Daniel stopped."

"Yes."

"Sophia changed her own position."

Nathaniel nodded.

Percy turned to him.

"Then you don't need to convince everyone. You need the five people standing beside you at that moment to understand you."

As Nathaniel considered this, he opened a small compartment in his bag. He took out an old sheet of paper with pronounced fold lines. Percy didn't recognize it. Nathaniel smoothed one corner with his fingers.

"What you had us write at camp."

Percy's gaze softened.

"You still have it?"

"Surprised I haven't eaten it?"

"A little."

Nathaniel laughed. He didn't unfold the paper.

"Mom put it away separately when we first moved, so it wouldn't get lost. Then she gave it back. I asked what it was. She said, You wrote it. So I read it."

"What did you write?"

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow.

"You said no one would read it."

"I haven't read it. I asked you."

Nathaniel paused, then nodded.

"True. I'm not telling you."

"All right."

He liked how easily that was accepted. He put the paper back in his bag. Percy didn't reach for it or insist. After a while, Nathaniel spoke of his own accord.

"I'm embarrassed by some of what I wrote now."

"Why?"

"They were small things."

Percy thought about that.

"They weren't small then."

Nathaniel didn't answer. He felt for the paper in his bag once more. Remembering what it had looked like to want something at seven was sometimes stranger than getting it. He thought about what it meant to have a room of their own, his mother checking over and over where she'd put the door key, and the way she no longer lowered her voice when talking about school expenses. He wanted to tell Percy these things. Then he worried it would sound like he was beginning to thank him.

Percy stood up.

"Don't do anything tomorrow just to show me."

Nathaniel looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I know your strength."

The sentence was so short that Nathaniel first thought something else would follow. When Percy slung his bag over his shoulder, he realized that was all of it.

"I'll still improve it."

"I know."

The serious expression stayed on Nathaniel's face for a while. Then his old grin returned.

"If I beat you one day, I'm going to shout a lot."

"Beat me first."

"I'm already practicing the shouting part."

Percy burst out laughing. Nathaniel stood too. They walked a few steps together. At the door, Percy slowed.

"One more thing."

Nathaniel sighed.

"If it's not about food, go ahead."

"Ask for help when you need it."

Nathaniel's face grew serious again. Then he looked at Percy.

"You too."

Percy didn't answer immediately.

Nathaniel waited. For the first time, he seemed pleased to be on the other side of the question.

"All right," Percy said at last.

Nathaniel nodded.

"Good. You're learning."

That evening, Wycliffe gathered the twelve students again.

He didn't set them a new test of strength. He placed three empty chairs in front of them. Then drew an exit line along one side of the map.

"Someone is injured," he said. "Someone's staff has broken. And you've realized someone is moving in the wrong direction. What do you do?"

Before beginning an answer, Arthur looked at William. William chose to listen to Nathaniel. Nathaniel didn't speak right away. Sophia raised her hand. She said they first needed to make sure everyone saw the same situation before doing anything.

Wycliffe nodded.

"Go on."

Amelia explained that the retreat route shouldn't overlap the attack line. Ethan suggested not leaving one person alone on the front line while carrying the wounded. Daniel said the person with the broken staff shouldn't be considered out of the fight. Lucas added that if there was another danger, the old plan was no longer the same plan.

Percy listened to all of them. Their teacher's questions looked easy. As the answers grew longer, they realized how few fit into a single right answer. Where every decision affected someone else, the distance between knowing and doing widened.

Finally, Wycliffe turned to Percy.

"What would you do?"

Percy looked at the chairs.

"First, I'd listen to whoever was speaking."

"Why?"

"I might not have seen everything myself."

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A hint of satisfaction crossed his teacher's face. He immediately turned to Nathaniel.

"And you?"

Nathaniel answered without thinking.

"If the first thing I said was wrong, I'd change it."

"If they objected?"

"I'd explain why it was wrong."

"If there wasn't time?"

Nathaniel frowned. He looked at Sophia. At Ethan. Then back at his teacher.

"Then we need to get to know each other now."

Wycliffe was silent for a moment. He saw the smile on Percy's face behind Nathaniel. For the first time that day, he closed his notebook.

"That's what you're training for."

When the lesson ended, the students carried the chairs back into place. No one acted as though they'd achieved a great success. What they'd gained was the ability to make the next right decision a little sooner. That was a difficult achievement to explain on the way home. Still, it was there.

On the way out, Clara touched Sophia's shoulder.

"You started in the right place with the first question."

Sophia smiled.

"You would've told Percy to shut up first."

Clara looked at Percy standing by the door.

"Sometimes that's necessary too."

Percy turned to object. Nathaniel caught his arm.

"We're applying the lesson. You might not have seen everything."

Arthur started laughing outside the door. Wycliffe turned back inside; he didn't complain about his retirement. As his students' voices traveled to the end of the corridor, he remained where he was for a while.

In the morning, he would see all twelve off.

The final change Melanos had been waiting for began on the day the forest's white-tailed hunter was killed.

It had gone toward the rising Chaos Fire, then withdrawn before seeing more than it should. An unfamiliar fire surrounded that boy. The surrounding flow had been disrupted for an instant, then reestablished. When Melanos returned to its own territory, it didn't want to hunt. It didn't tell Leon what it had seen that night either.

The accumulation in its body no longer behaved as though it simply wanted more energy. The familiar boundary responded from a different point with every breath. Leon noticed a few days later. As the creature drew back the power it once dispersed, the trace it left behind shrank; inside, the weight increased.

"You're close," he said.

Melanos didn't open its eyes.

"You've been saying that for months."

"This time is different."

"What if you're wrong?"

Leon fell silent. The spiders around the creature were silent too. Some weren't even moving their webs. The pressure leaking through narrow gaps in Melanos's body told their instincts more clearly than Leon's words could.

That night, the wind changed direction in the stone hollow deep in the forest.

No aura lashed outward. Melanos held its power inside, as it had learned. It directed the ambient Orin it had separated layer by layer into its Core; it released what was incompatible and took what it could bear. At one point, Leon raised his voice. Told it to reduce the amount. For the first time, Melanos reduced it without argument.

Then it stopped.

Leon held his breath.

The sound of a threshold breaking wasn't always an explosion. Sometimes, sounds that had already been there stopped all at once. Leon could no longer hear his own pulse. The stone beneath his feet hadn't changed its hardness; yet his body standing upon it seemed to have less claim to that stone.

Melanos opened its eyes.

King Monster.

Leon's knees hit the ground. He planted his hands in front of him; when he tried to raise his head, pressure passed down his back. He couldn't tell whether the creature before him had grown or he had shrunk. Melanos's folded limbs slowly opened. Every spider around it retreated farther. It hadn't needed to command a single one.

This time, Melanos's laughter didn't travel through the passage walls. It traveled through Leon's chest.

"You did it."

Leon tried to laugh. All he managed was to breathe out a little faster.

When Melanos restrained its aura, he lifted his face.

"I told you."

"What do you want as your reward?"

Leon didn't need to prepare an answer. The one sentence he'd held in his mind for years stood before real power for the first time.

"Make Percy suffer."

Melanos waited.

"Then kill him."

"Who is Percy?"

"A human."

"There are many like you."

Leon gripped the rock to get to his feet.

"None like him."

Melanos lowered its head. Leon knew the danger of talking too much before the creature. Yet this time, he couldn't stop himself. He spoke of Percy's name, the people around him, how many years he'd been unable to reach him. When he saw Melanos losing interest, he gave the most unmistakable distinction.

"His fire is different. He uses Chaos Fire."

The King Monster's claw stilled on the stone.

Leon saw it.

Melanos's aura didn't grow. Quite the opposite: the pressure around it drew a little tighter. Brief recognition showed behind its eyes; for the first time, Leon saw it taking the measure of something unfamiliar.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Do you know what you saw?"

"I haven't forgotten the fire that broke my lightning."

Melanos remembered the moment white and dark red radiance had intertwined on the other side of the forest. The boy it hadn't approached, around whom it had sensed traces of greater beings. It hadn't known the fire's name. Hearing it did nothing to ease its unease.

Leon approached that hesitation from another angle.

"I'm not asking you to fight him in front of everyone."

Melanos turned its eyes toward him.

"The people beside him first," Leon said. "Make him wonder where to direct his power. Let him try to save them. Let him think he's saved one. Then let him see the others."

The creature was silent for a long time.

Leon wore a calm expression. For the first time in years, he wasn't waiting at the door of a plan. He could hear it opening.

"Pain first," he repeated.

Melanos folded its claws.

This time, it didn't laugh.

The Mages' Specialty Store catalog lay open on William's desk for a week.

Every time Percy looked, it was on another page. The first day showed protective rings. The second, marker stones. On the third were field blankets suitable for carrying someone injured, beside a drawing of a dark cloak.

Arthur placed his finger on the cloak.

"Could we get out of class with this?"

William answered before finishing the text beneath the drawing.

"The odds improve if you stop talking."

Charlotte pulled the page toward her. The cloak's purpose wasn't to launch an attack, but to escape danger unseen. It concealed the light around its wearer and their exposed Orin signature, and could hide an immobile casualty beneath the same covering. It didn't eliminate touch, weight, or the movement of a stone. Nor did it absolutely prevent concentrated scrutiny directed at it. But amid the noise of battle and tangled traces, it could leave little enough for a glance to miss.

"Buying this makes sense," Charlotte said.

Percy looked beside the price. Then at the group equipment on the other page.

"Let's go to the store together. See all of it."

"Today?"

"After the checkup."

The checkup ran long. The next day, the second team had training. The day after that, the mission was approved. The catalog went into a bag; visiting the store became one of the little tasks left for their return.

Around the same time, another mage bought one of those cloaks.

Leon didn't see him in the city. He saw him rearranging his belongings at a rest stop outside it. The man was explaining to his friend how the cloak folded. His hand, briefly disappearing beneath the folded fabric, drew Leon's attention faster than any of the conversation.

Leon waited.

When the man was alone, he approached him. The first thing he did was ask for help. Hearing the voice of a boy who looked about thirteen, dressed in worn clothes, the man didn't go fully on guard. He saw the hunger on Leon's face. He didn't see what had been growing behind it for years.

The lightning was brief.

As Leon opened the bag of the man lying on the ground, he knew he hadn't been attacked. He didn't choose not to know; he chose that knowing didn't matter. He found the cloak. He took the man's Shiri too. The device's identity wasn't his own. He would be able to send messages.

The first time he tried the cloak, a pebble beneath his foot made a sound. Leon froze. After looking around for a while, he understood the difference between not being seen and not being there. The new item didn't make him powerful. It bought him the few seconds he'd been waiting for.

He didn't yet know whether he'd need more than that.

He left without looking at the man's face again.

On the morning of the mission, the academy's rear courtyard seemed too crowded for a small journey.

Nathaniel was trying to zip his backpack shut. Ethan had been watching for some time, feeling no guilt about not helping. Daniel pointed to one of the packages protruding from the bag.

"You could've packed spare gloves instead of that."

"You can't eat gloves."

"Food won't stop a claw either."

Nathaniel raised his head.

"Bread might, if it's hard enough."

Sophia looked at Amelia. Amelia turned away to keep from laughing. Lucas loosened Nathaniel's shoulder strap so the bag would sit properly.

"You're going to fall forward."

"I'm prepared in every direction."

Percy stood a few steps away and listened. Then he opened Nathaniel's bag. Nathaniel was about to object; Percy merely moved the hard objects toward the outside and the food somewhere more protected. A thin, hand-tied string secured the last package. He didn't undo the knot.

"Who packed this?"

"My mother."

Percy put the package back in the same place.

"She tied it well."

Nathaniel went quiet for a moment.

"I tried opening it. It wouldn't open."

"I can tell."

The woman coming down the steps quickened her pace when she saw them. She held the small water container Nathaniel had forgotten to bring. Seeing her, Nathaniel tipped his head back.

"Mom, I packed one."

"This was left at home."

"It was a spare."

"Now you'll have a spare with you."

She tucked the container into the side of the bag. Then straightened her son's collar. Nathaniel acted embarrassed in front of his friends, but didn't pull away. Her hands lingered at his collar a little longer than necessary.

"You'll eat on time."

The corner of Percy's mouth twitched. Nathaniel saw it.

"Don't laugh."

When the woman turned to Percy, that small smile softened. Percy bowed his head in greeting. She no longer looked at him with the expression she'd worn when she'd first received the key to her home and hadn't known what to say. That day's gratitude had become something else: the familiarity of seeing a boy whose name came up often in her son's life.

"You will eat too," she said.

Nathaniel immediately raised his hand.

"His package is separate."

"It's in your bag."

Nathaniel turned to the bag. Examined it for a while.

"Why have I become the president's supply wagon?"

Percy clapped his shoulder.

"Apparently you're a reliable storage facility."

Nathaniel's mother laughed. When her son laughed too, she finally took her hands from his collar. It was clear she wanted to say something longer. She didn't. She looked at all the children who were leaving and told them to take care of themselves.

Nathaniel waved as his mother walked away. Then lifted his bag a little more carefully.

Clara saw it.

"Don't crush my package."

Nathaniel turned to her.

"Yours is in here too?"

Clara smiled.

"I'm your favorite classmate."

Nathaniel nodded without hesitation.

"True."

Percy looked at him.

"When did you decide that?"

"When she gave me a sandwich."

"I taught you magic."

"I can't chew that."

Arthur's laughter filled the courtyard. Charlotte caught Nathaniel's bag before it fell. Percy raised both hands.

"All right. I've made a mistake in the education system."

Nathaniel slung his bag over his shoulder.

"Improve the nutrition side and it'll work out."

Before they left, Charlotte pulled Percy aside.

"Is Absolute Cancel's cooldown over?"

Percy looked at the Shiri on his wrist. The one-month wait since the day he'd saved Charlotte from the first real Nevr attack had ended. The indicator was active again. Even so, he didn't answer immediately.

"I won't protect you again."

Charlotte looked at his face.

"You will."

"I won't."

"You will."

Percy folded his arms.

"I won't."

Charlotte continued with the same calm.

"You will."

"I won't."

"Percy."

"What?"

"You checked the indicator before I asked."

Percy's eyes dropped involuntarily to his wrist. Charlotte laughed. A few seconds later, he started laughing too. Arthur had heard the end of the conversation; without asking anything, he came over and took the small bag Charlotte carried.

"I'll carry it."

Charlotte didn't let go.

"I'll be using this in battle."

Arthur thought. Then gave the bag back.

"Right."

Percy looked at him. Arthur immediately raised a finger.

"Don't call me Stone Man."

"I didn't say anything."

As Charlotte began walking, she spoke without looking at either of them.

"I will."

The laughter continued as they boarded the carriages. On the last step, Percy turned to look at the second carriage's door. Nathaniel was stowing Lucas's bag inside, while Ethan shifted in his seat to make room for Sophia. Daniel held the doorway clear so Amelia's staff wouldn't get caught.

Six people.

Percy counted them once more. Then boarded his own carriage.

When Clara sat beside him, the small phoenix on her chest swayed gently against the fabric. Percy straightened the tip of its wing with his finger. Clara placed her hand over his wrist.

"It's there," she said.

"I know."

"You checked anyway."

Percy smiled instead of answering.

At the other end of the carriage, William opened the map. Arthur rested his arm on the windowsill. Charlotte counted her supplies once more. Marcus looked outside. Nathaniel's voice came from the carriage behind them.

"WE HAVEN'T EVEN LEFT AND I'M HUNGRY!"

Percy turned toward the window.

"DON'T FINISH YOUR FOOD BEFORE WE'VE EVEN LEFT!"

The answer came at once.

"WASN'T IT SUPPOSED TO BE A SHARED BUDGET?"

Clara rested her head on Percy's shoulder. She was laughing.

The horses began to move.

When they saw the first six-meter wolf, Arthur thought of the drawing in the report.

The problem with the drawing wasn't that it was wrong. It was that it was right. He'd seen the scale on the paper, compared the height with his own, and formed a rough body in his mind. But the creature before him breathed, its shoulders shifting with each breath, its paws pressing water out of the ground beneath them. Things like that didn't happen on paper.

The wolf raised its head.

Arthur's shield formed before the growl ended.

"Who grew this thing?"

Nathaniel answered from behind him.

"It's been eating well."

Charlotte looked at both of them. Arthur didn't try another joke. As the wolf's pressure passed over him, the first layer of his shield trembled. He shifted his feet; seeing that the ground in front was soft, he moved half a step right.

Percy saw the small adjustment. He said nothing.

The two groups waited along the same line. They would take the first encounter together. As Galahad had required in training, the second six wouldn't disappear behind the first group, but wouldn't needlessly crowd the front line either. Nathaniel watched the changes around the wolf more than the wolf itself. When Lucas edged to one side, he caught his arm.

"Not there. Look at the pressure."

Lucas stopped.

When the wolf leaped, it landed on the spot where he'd just been about to step.

Arthur didn't meet the blow head-on. He tilted his shield sideways; as the claw slid across its surface, he transferred the load on his shoulder into the ground. Even so, his knee nearly buckled. Ethan stepped forward and placed a narrow Orin barrier on the wolf's other side. The barrier couldn't stop the creature. It forced it to change its stance.

William's ice rose at that precise point.

"Left now."

Percy came from the left. The moment the wolf turned its head toward him, Clara sent her light just above its eye level. Percy slipped beneath the claw; he released the fire gathered at Blaze's tip not into the thickest part of the body, but into the opening created by its turn. The first burst of flame didn't kill the wolf. It knocked its hind foot out of position.

"Stay together!" Nathaniel shouted.

Daniel had been about to attack. He stopped the moment the voice reached him. Instead of retreating from its own pain, the wolf made a half-turn; branches swept up by its tail flew past Daniel. Amelia deflected the debris with a sphere. Sophia closed the gap behind Ethan's backward step.

For the first time, the movement around the wolf belonged not to two separate groups, but to twelve people facing the same danger.

Charlotte concentrated her enhancement on Arthur. Arthur straightened again. Marcus reached the rear angle with a short shadow transition, but rather than strike, he gave William the position. Ice lances pierced the ground at different inclinations. Not to surround the wolf, but to determine which foot it would put its weight on.

Percy's eyes met Nathaniel's.

Nathaniel wasn't smiling.

"Leave the right open," he said.

Percy did.

When the wolf charged toward the side it thought was open, Clara withdrew from that point. Arthur's second shield stood behind her. The body broke the shield, but lost speed doing so. Percy's fire and Clara's light struck the same opening. This time, the creature's knees hit the ground.

No one celebrated.

Marcus checked for the possibility of a final movement. Daniel said he could see Orin gathering near its neck. William changed the attack angle. The second joint strike prevented the wolf from rising again.

For a while, all they could hear was breathing.

Arthur took his hands from the shield. Opened and closed them.

"All right," he said. "I don't like the drawing."

Nathaniel looked at Lucas.

"The drawing wasn't biting us."

This time, a brief laugh escaped them. The kind that followed fear, confirming they could still breathe.

Percy turned to the second six.

"You did well."

Nathaniel stood straighter. Sophia looked first at Ethan, then Amelia. Daniel was trying to feel proud of himself for the one thing he'd done right: waiting. Lucas, meanwhile, was looking at the spot he'd decided not to step on.

Percy came beside him.

"Did you see it?"

Lucas nodded.

"This time, after he told me."

"Next time, you'll see it a little earlier."

Nathaniel heard that. A sentence spoken to him years ago now rested on someone else in the same way.

Toward noon, the tension of the first encounter gave way to work.

It wasn't easy. The wolves didn't behave as expected when wounded, and despite their size, they could change direction over short distances with frightening speed. Every battle left information they could use in the next. Percy gathered it; William organized it; Marcus separated what he'd seen from what he was certain he'd seen.

The second group no longer simply waited for commands. Ethan adjusted his front line, Daniel kept Amelia's line of fire open as he withdrew from an attack, and Sophia checked her surroundings before throwing herself in front of danger to lift someone from the ground. Sometimes Nathaniel talked too much, then cut himself off and left only what was needed.

"There's a bit of something on the left, I mean—Lucas, fall back."

Lucas fell back.

When the wolf's claw struck, Nathaniel didn't finish the explanation.

That was what made Percy smile.

Far away, on a high slope where two valleys met, Galahad saw it.

"He's talking less."

Eleanor looked toward Nathaniel.

"The world is changing."

The corner of Holar's mouth moved slightly. All three were allowing the children to resolve the encounters on their own; that didn't mean they'd stopped watching the surroundings. Galahad tracked moving packs, Eleanor checked the clearings between the two working lines, and Holar watched the larger signatures deeper in the forest.

The records on Melanos were inadequate.

A creature at the upper end of the Advanced class, reluctant to leave the area it had occupied for years. Sometimes it left no trace for weeks; sometimes its pressure was felt in a distant region before it vanished again. Its development was irregular—not exactly slow, but it wasn't known as a being that jumped to another class with every appearance either. Holar had sensed it from a distance during the last encounter and seen that it didn't attack directly.

That information was useful as long as it remained information. Carried as certainty, it could become dangerous.

That morning, Holar checked the heavy signature to the north. It resembled the density he knew. It wasn't very distinct; the creature must have constricted its presence again. Since the signature lay outside the mission corridor, his attention returned to the children.

Galahad watched Percy having a brief conversation with William.

"They're opening the second line."

Eleanor looked at the map.

"Distance between them?"

"They won't go beyond three hundred meters."

Holar looked north once more. Then gave his approval.

Something in the forest continued to look as though it had stayed in place.

Separate from that old signature it had left behind, another body had already moved.

When they took a break, Nathaniel opened someone else's bag first.

Without a word, Ethan took it from him and pushed Nathaniel's own bag in front of him. Nathaniel stared for a few seconds.

"Let's say I didn't do that."

"You did."

"Internal team resource distribution."

Daniel raised his head from where he crouched.

"The resources always get distributed to you."

Nathaniel took out the package his mother had tied. He worked at the knot for a while, then handed it to Percy.

"Open it."

Percy was surprised.

"Me?"

"You find paths. Find your way through a knot."

Clara began to laugh. Percy loosened the knot with his fingers. When it opened, the package wasn't filled only with Nathaniel's favorites. Small portions had been set aside. Nathaniel handed those out first. He gave one to Ethan, others to Sophia and Amelia. As he offered one to Lucas, he pulled his hand back.

"You gave that warning late."

Lucas frowned.

"Is this punishment?"

"Half a second."

Then he handed it over.

Percy looked at the food in his hand. They didn't put little breaks like these in mission records. How many seconds a battle lasted, how much Orin each person spent, who blocked which blow—all of that was recorded. But these moments, when someone gave another person water, opened the wrong bag, or shared a package from their mother, weren't in the records. It didn't occur to Percy then that they ought to be written down. Having lived them seemed to make preserving them separately unnecessary.

William spread the map between them.

"There are two concentrations here. The larger ones are on the western slope. The smaller group is in the clearing near the stream."

Marcus indicated the northern line.

"There's a covered area between them, but the passage is open. Don't go any farther than that."

Nathaniel leaned over.

"Distance?"

"About three hundred meters."

"We'll hear each other."

Percy raised his head.

"Don't rely on hearing. Keep your Shiri on. Report any change in position. If you feel a major pressure, abandon the target and retreat."

The humor left Nathaniel's face.

"Understood."

Percy looked at the other five too.

"This isn't because you're worth less."

Sophia raised an eyebrow slightly.

"We know."

"I just wanted to say it."

Ethan adjusted his shoulder strap.

"You said it when we were seven too."

Percy fell silent. The day he'd first chosen his team, he'd tried to explain before everyone that he wasn't deciding based on who mattered more. Only now, from Ethan's face, did he understand that he'd truly listened then.

Nathaniel stood up.

"Normal stages on our side. We're leaving the big ones to you. Let us know if you get hungry."

Arthur laughed as he rose.

"Will you bring help?"

"I was talking about food."

Charlotte checked the bandage on Sophia's wrist. She'd strained it during target practice that morning; it wouldn't keep her from fighting. Still, Charlotte loosened the knot a little. Sophia thanked her. Amelia put the last marker stone into an easily reached compartment of her bag. Lucas traced the route once more with his eyes. Daniel moved behind Nathaniel.

Percy watched them set off.

After five steps, Nathaniel turned.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Stop watching. It feels like I'm going to an exam."

"You should've studied."

Nathaniel grinned.

"I trust my future self."

Ethan's reply came immediately.

"Your future self can hear you right now."

The laughter of all six scattered among the trees. Percy looked toward the sound for a while. Then turned in his own team's direction.

The first ten minutes showed that splitting up was working.

Nathaniel's first report was short. They'd found a target and checked the surroundings. In the second report, Sophia said the rear was clear. As Percy listened, he watched the wolf before him transfer its weight. He responded to William's voice, passed through the gap Arthur opened, and struck from the left as the body was drawn toward Clara's light.

This division of work was new, but something familiar lay beneath it. Trusting what someone else saw didn't mean closing his own eyes. After a while, Percy began to distinguish how Nathaniel's voice changed with each reply. The excitement in the first report had given way to work. Sentences grew shorter, unnecessary explanations fewer.

"One down," Nathaniel said.

"Confirmed?"

"By two people."

"Good."

Nathaniel paused.

"Say hi to William. I counted."

William had already heard.

"I'm waiting for the rest."

Nathaniel's quiet laugh came through. The connection stayed open.

Percy turned toward the second large wolf in front of him. Clara moved to his right. William's ice held the creature's hind leg; Arthur maintained pressure from the front. As Percy prepared the finishing blow, the shadow of a tree behind them changed.

Marcus raised his head.

"Nevr."

When the warning came, Clara was too close to the wolf. The Nevr had built its attack around her position; whether the wolf turned or not, Clara would remain on the side where the light was receding. Percy saw it. He drew his hand away from the wolf and raised it to the side.

"Absolute Cancel."

The Nevr's completed spell vanished.

Clara turned her head. Percy didn't look at her; he used the brief opening to drive a pure Orin strike into the wolf's chest. Arthur increased the pressure. The moment William released the leg, Marcus moved to the Nevr's rear angle.

The attack was over within half a minute.

Charlotte looked at Percy.

"You weren't going to protect me."

Percy lowered his staff.

"I didn't protect you."

Clara cut in.

"He has a separate contract for me."

Arthur laughed. Percy turned to Clara; the little expression on her face was one he'd known for years. Before he could start arguing with her, he checked the two targets on the ground. This time, no one stopped doing their job.

On the slope above, Eleanor laughed.

"Even while talking back, she doesn't lose her place."

Galahad nodded.

"He's a good student of hers in certain things."

Holar watched Percy lower his hand and scan his surroundings again. His smile didn't last long.

Another signature had moved in the distance.

Percy's expression changed before anyone understood why.

First, he frowned. Then turned his head north. The Orin flow immediately around him was still familiar, but farther away, somewhere he couldn't see, a weight had shifted. He turned his body slightly. Marcus watched him.

"What did you see?"

"I didn't see anything."

William took his communication device in hand.

"Pressure?"

Percy waited a breath before answering.

"Yes."

Melanos.

The name didn't leave his mouth immediately. The night Helmea died, he hadn't noticed the pressure deeper in the forest. Now he recalled what he'd been told during the subsequent checkups, the scarcity of records, the fact that a hidden body didn't always remain in the same place. But what he felt wouldn't let him settle it with a name.

Something was wrong.

When William asked, he said those exact words.

"What is?"

"I don't know."

He spoke not as if he didn't want to answer, but as if he truly didn't know. Clara looked at his face. Percy took his eyes from the north and turned toward Nathaniel's group.

"Clara."

"I'm here."

"There should be three hundred meters between us. Go make sure they're all right. Check that their position is correct."

Clara nodded. She switched her staff to the other hand for a more comfortable grip. Percy touched her arm.

"If anything's different, don't wait until you're back. Let me know."

Clara's gaze softened.

"I will, Perc."

She went.

Percy wanted to watch her go. The three wolves in front of them didn't allow it.

As Clara passed through the trees between the two working areas, she didn't brighten her light.

There was enough daylight to see. She also remembered what Percy had told her on the first night: You're one of the things you illuminate. As she ran, she picked out gaps between the trees, passed over protrusions in the ground, and checked her Shiri once. Nathaniel's position hadn't changed.

She heard his voice first.

"Ethan, move your foot. Don't step there."

Then came the sound of a blow. Followed by a short warning from Lucas.

When Clara emerged into the clearing, all six were standing.

One wolf was on the ground. The other, trying to escape the sphere Amelia had sent, struck the barrier in front of Daniel. Ethan changed his stance, and Sophia closed the gap in the middle. Though Nathaniel saw Clara, he didn't turn to her immediately. He waited for the attack before him; the moment the wolf put its weight on the wrong foot, he signaled his friends.

The final strike came together.

Only after the wolf fell did Nathaniel turn his head.

"Here for an inspection?"

"Percy sent me."

"Of course he did."

He grumbled, but didn't look bothered. Clara looked at her friends. Ethan had a small scratch on his cheek. Daniel was breathing quickly. Sophia was fixing a lace tangled around her shoe, while Amelia opened and closed her fingers after her last spell. Lucas hadn't stopped scanning the surroundings.

Clara raised her Shiri.

"They're fine. The position is correct."

Percy's answer didn't come immediately. William's voice sounded in the background, followed by an explosion.

Clara didn't lower the device. Nathaniel noticed.

"What happened on their side?"

"Three more wolves."

"I was going to be angry with him for leaving us the smaller ones."

"And now?"

Nathaniel looked at the body on the ground.

"Now I'll be a little less angry."

Clara's lips curved. Then Nathaniel's expression changed.

The change was so small that anyone else might have thought he'd merely stopped smiling. Clara had known him for years. Nathaniel looked like that not when food distracted him, but when he couldn't quite see anything clearly.

"What is it?"

Nathaniel didn't answer. He lifted his hand slightly. Lucas stopped talking. Sophia straightened. Ethan didn't disperse the barrier around him.

The air had changed.

But not from the right direction.

Nathaniel looked at the ground. Dry leaves drifted left on the wind, while fine strands of a web pulled right against that same wind. Vibrations he'd taken for small animals came from multiple points in the same rhythm. This wasn't natural disorder. Something was trying too hard to make the area seem ordinary.

"Stay together," he said.

Clara raised her staff.

This time, Nathaniel's gaze turned left with clear certainty.

"There."

Darkness drew away from a body.

As Percy brought down the last wolf, he didn't follow it.

Arthur had turned the creature right, and William held its hind leg. Percy drove a short burst of fire into the exposed area; Marcus emerged from the darkness and cut off its final movement. The second body lay a little farther back. The third lay well away from Charlotte's retreat line.

It was all over.

Percy still didn't feel right.

"Clara?"

He'd heard the earlier reply through the Shiri. They were fine. Their position was correct. There were three hundred meters between them. He lined up those facts in his mind, one after another. None removed the wrongness inside him.

William looked at him.

"We're going."

It wasn't a question. Percy nodded. Marcus had already turned toward the second group.

At that moment, the pressure from the north cut off.

It didn't vanish. It was as though a rope tied in the wrong place had come loose.

Holar felt it from above. He turned from the children toward the old signature's location. The information before him changed at once. There was no body there. There was a dispersed trace. Ambient Orin had been passed over an old shell, made to feel like the place where a being stood.

Galahad saw Holar's face.

"Where?"

Eleanor had already turned the other way.

The second area.

None of them waited to see what happened next.

When Melanos entered the clearing, Nathaniel gave the retreat signal.

It was the correct signal.

Ethan placed a barrier in front of his friends. Daniel held the left line. Amelia prepared her spell to disrupt the first attack that would cut between them as they withdrew. Lucas searched for an opening on the other side. Sophia moved where Nathaniel indicated. Clara opened a narrow line of light to illuminate the way behind them all.

None of them was laughing. None underestimated the danger.

Nathaniel didn't recall Percy's voice at that moment. He was doing what he'd learned. Reporting what he saw, trying to let his friends move at the same time. When one of Melanos's folded limbs opened, he read its direction correctly.

"Duck!"

The first blow passed over them.

A tree trunk snapped behind them. Lucas rolled and got up. Amelia's spell struck not the attack, but the falling debris, preventing it from blocking their path. Ethan added another layer. Clara saw the opening between the creature's two main claws and sent her spear of light into it.

Melanos turned its head.

The spear shattered against its outer armor.

Clara's expression changed. The power she sensed in the creature didn't match its response. Something's scale had been concealed. Only a breath separated her realization from the being before her releasing what it had hidden.

The King's aura opened.

Ethan's barriers collapsed inward without being struck.

Lucas's knees touched the ground. The sphere Daniel had prepared dissolved in his palm. Sophia brought a hand to her chest as she struggled to breathe. Amelia raised her other hand to keep hold of her staff. Nathaniel managed to remain standing, but a terrible weight had come between deciding to move and lifting his feet.

They'd felt something close to this fear at camp.

At camp, the people sending the attacks had been there to keep them from dying.

Clara shouted.

"Back!"

Nathaniel had already reached for Ethan. Instead of saving himself with his first move, he helped his friend get up. One of Melanos's two large front claws rose. The other jointed limbs unfolded from its body; every piece they'd mistaken for armor turned toward a different angle.

Nathaniel saw every angle.

Seeing them didn't mean he could cover them all.

This time, there was no right command to give.

Melanos moved.

Clara's light spread in front of her. She pulled Ethan's shoulder. Stepped toward Sophia. Began to say Amelia's name.

One claw reached Nathaniel.

The others descended on five separate places in the same movement.

Names passed over the people who could have answered them.

Lucas's last spell missed its target. The line Daniel held fell with him. Sophia's hand remained at the edge of Ethan's clothes. Amelia's staff dropped to the earth. Ethan collapsed again just as he thought he'd risen.

Nathaniel took a step back.

Clara couldn't tell whether it was a step. His body had slid backward over feet that could no longer carry him. She reached to catch him. This time, Melanos's claw turned toward Clara.

The small phoenix on her chest ignited.

Percy had opened his mouth to say Clara's name.

A warmth like his own fire, yet not born from his own Core, passed through his chest. Then the forest in front of him folded. He didn't pass the trees between them. He didn't run three hundred meters. He didn't choose a path.

The Phoenix Necklace used the single summons agreed upon years before.

Percy appeared beside Clara.

The path of a claw swept before them. The necklace had weakened the blow's impact; it hadn't erased it. The wound opening in Clara's chest was right before Percy's eyes. He caught her as her knees buckled. His fingers touched warm, slippery fabric.

"Clara."

He thought no sound had come out. Then he heard his own voice.

"Absolute Heal."

Light spread beneath his hands.

"Absolute Heal."

He didn't notice the tears running from his eyes. He saw nothing else. For an instant, the lakeside, the hospital room, and a door that wouldn't close gathered in the same place. Clara's breath had grown faint. Percy didn't lift his palm.

"I'm here."

The wound began to close. Clara took a broken breath. Searched for Percy's face. Percy leaned a little closer; his voice traveled no farther than the space between them.

"Look at me. Clara, look."

Clara looked.

Percy saw her chest move as she breathed. Once. Then again. His own knees trembled as he helped her stand. Clara held on to him, but her eyes didn't stay on his face.

She looked over his shoulder.

Percy turned too.

Percy didn't struggle to understand who the people before him were.

What he struggled with was understanding why they were like that.

Ethan lay on his side. One hand was near his chest, the other extended toward Sophia a little farther away. His shoelace had come undone. Percy had noticed that lace just that morning, but before he could mention it, Ethan had bent to tie it himself, so he'd said nothing. Now it had come undone again. That needed fixing.

Daniel lay on the line he'd tried to protect. The fabric at his shoulder had torn again where Arthur had gripped it days before. Percy remembered him in the sand of the old camp. When he'd struggled to finish the first lap, Arthur had pulled him by the arm. Daniel had been able to keep walking. That day, every line had been about getting up again.

Lucas's staff lay a little way from him. His fingers remained curled as though still holding it. Nathaniel had set a rhythm for him as they ran, steadied his breathing, refused to let him fall behind. Percy saw the end of a lap those two children had finished together. Then the image settled over the earth before him.

Amelia's bag had come open. The signal rod she'd repaired had slipped out and rested against a stone. The thin binding holding its two ends together was still in place. She was supposed to see the reward for her work just a little while ago, to use the same thing again that evening.

A leaf was caught in Sophia's hair. Charlotte would scold her, and Sophia would smooth the wrong side with her hand. Clara would laugh and point out the right one. Percy didn't think of this as a scene that hadn't happened yet. It was the ordinary continuation that should follow. An image belonging to any other outcome could find no place in his mind.

Then he saw Nathaniel.

His bag had slipped from his back. One corner of the package his mother had tied had opened, and a piece of food had fallen onto the ground. Nathaniel would have found something to say even about that. First he'd blame the ground, then the bag that hadn't protected him, then Percy's poor choice of location. In the end, he'd ask Charlotte whether he could eat it.

Percy looked at his mouth.

Waited for a word.

A word spoken at the wrong moment, as always.

"...Nathaniel?"

Clara's hand tightened on Percy's arm. He noticed how weakly her finger pressed against him. Only moments ago, he would have given everything in the world for that finger to move. Now it was moving. Clara was alive. He held on to that fact. Then he looked at the six bodies before him and couldn't understand why the same fact couldn't reach them.

Nathaniel's eyes weren't closed. Nor were they looking toward Percy. They remained turned in the direction he'd faced at the last moment. The direction in which he'd tried to see someone else, read a movement, deliver a warning in time.

Something rose inside Percy. It wasn't an ability. Nor was it the excitement he knew at the start of a fight. His chest tightened as though there was far too little room inside.

"I..."

The sentence never ended.

He heard the sounds he'd made himself. Go. Get used to each other. Keep communication open. Only three hundred meters.

They hadn't been farther away.

They hadn't been in another country, on another defensive line, in a battle he couldn't reach. They'd said they could hear him if he raised his voice. Nathaniel had said that.

A tear fell from Clara's face. Seeing her cry, Percy understood fully for the first time that six people really were lying on the ground. Sometimes pain settling on someone else's face made true what his own eyes refused to accept.

Melanos stood before them.

Percy slowly raised his head. Beneath the released aura, his thoughts were no longer scattering. Something worse was happening. He could see everything clearly enough.

"...It."

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"It..."

Clara looked at him.

Percy barely managed to speak.

"A King Monster."

When Holar landed, part of the clearing turned white.

Galahad was behind Percy. Eleanor appeared on Clara's other side. All three moved toward the same result: get the living out of the attack. Face the remaining target. Don't allow a second blow.

The moment Melanos saw Holar, it folded its limbs. The pressure it had held over the children an instant earlier now became a defense around its own body. Holar raised his right hand. Part of the creature's outer plating broke apart. One of its front claws was knocked back; its body tore through the earth it had stood on as it was driven backward.

These two powers were not equal.

Melanos didn't wait for a second blow to learn that.

But before fleeing, it shattered the ground. Hundreds of separate Orin signatures rose through the webs and scattered among broken stones and flying earth. Paths long used beneath the forest opened. The creature had chosen not to fight, but to direct the next glance to the wrong place.

Holar's second movement went not toward Melanos, but toward the mass hurtling at the children. Roots rising like a ceiling over the clearing stopped in midair. Eleanor cast them aside. Galahad caught Percy by the shoulder.

"Back."

Percy pulled his arm away.

"Nathaniel."

"Percy, now."

Clara tried to break free of Eleanor's hold.

"They're there."

"I know."

"Mom, they're there!"

Eleanor's expression changed. She was no longer using her wind only for defense. She opened separate layers of support around the bodies on the ground; careful enough to lift them where they lay without dragging them, faster than the incoming attack.

When Arthur, Charlotte, William, and Marcus reached the edge of the clearing, they saw their six friends not suspended in the air, but resting on flat transport surfaces Eleanor had formed. Charlotte said Nathaniel's name first. Then she saw Sophia. Then the others.

She stumbled as she ran. Arthur caught her arm. This time, he didn't help her up with a joke.

Holar moved the entire group to the rocky outcrop behind them. The protective field opening before them stopped the debris flying in from outside. Inside looked safe. Amid the battle outside, not enough time had passed to call anything safe.

Clara walked two steps. She wanted to look at Percy. The wound in her chest had closed, but standing beneath that aura, seeing her friends fall, then realizing for an instant that she was about to die again had drained every bit of strength from her body. Eleanor caught her before she fell.

"Clara."

Her daughter answered. Her voice was very small.

"Nathaniel..."

Then her eyes closed.

Eleanor laid her on level ground. She was breathing. Her heart was beating. She checked the wound. Percy's healing had held. She pulled a nearby protective blanket beneath her head; as she reached toward Sophia two steps away, she checked Clara's wrist one last time.

At the same moment, Percy was trying to escape Galahad's grip.

"Let go, big brother."

"No."

"I'm going to them."

"We're bringing them."

"Don't say we're bringing them!"

Percy's voice cracked. Galahad turned to him. On his brother's face was fear he'd seen before, but this time it wasn't simply the face of a child afraid for his own life. It was as though every name inside him was trying to come out at once.

"Let me talk," Percy said. "I lost half my class!"

Galahad's grip tightened.

"I lost my brother too."

Percy fell silent.

Galahad continued. His voice wasn't loud. That made it sound harsher.

"I don't want that again."

"Then let me go."

"I won't."

"Galahad, big brother—"

"I won't let go, Percy."

The power inside Percy opened at once. Fire rose around his arm. He wasn't preparing a new attack; he thought the grip holding him was the final obstacle between him and his friends on the ground. Galahad saw on his little brother's face that he'd made that decision.

He raised his hand.

Percy felt the blow touch the back of his neck only as his vision closed.

"Bro..."

Galahad didn't let him fall. He caught him in both arms.

Holar turned his head. Eleanor stared in horror. Galahad didn't take his eyes from the boy in his arms.

"First, he'll live," he said.

No one answered.

Leon was inside Holar's protective field.

He hadn't entered by breaking through it. When the field formed, he'd already been waiting behind the rock.

Before Melanos released the first pressure, he'd reached the edge of the clearing and stayed motionless beneath the cloak. He hadn't known which direction Percy would come from. Nor had he known what the little bird on Clara's chest would do. When Percy suddenly appeared, Leon had startled too, tensing his whole body to keep his knee from striking the stone as he drew back.

Then Holar had come.

When Leon felt the power passing a few steps beyond his hiding place, he remembered the door of the old house. The water he'd swallowed when hurled into the sea, his family's emblems going dark across the city, the days when no one remained to call him by name. For a moment, he'd thought the cloak would be useless.

Under a gaze turned directly upon him, it might indeed not have been enough.

But Holar's gaze hadn't turned toward him. It had turned toward the children on the ground, the attacking King Monster, the flying earth, his grandson preparing to attack again. The cloak didn't make Leon stronger than any of those things. It merely kept him unseen in a place where, at that moment, no one was looking for him.

When Eleanor laid Clara down, Leon didn't move.

The woman's hand was on her daughter's wrist. Leon knew he'd die if he approached while that hand was there. So he waited. All the days of his life in which he'd been forced to learn patience now fit into a few breaths behind a rock.

Eleanor turned to Sophia.

Galahad held Percy.

Percy's fire rose again.

Leon walked.

When he first saw Clara's face, something unexpected happened inside him. Six years had passed mostly around an unchanging image in his mind. Now the face before him was older than that image. Her hair was longer. The line of her jaw had changed. The wings of the bird on her chest had blackened. For a moment, Leon stood as though he might forget what he was doing.

Then he heard Percy's voice.

I lost half my class.

Leon moved again.

He drew one edge of the cloak over Clara. Beneath the fabric, the girl's appearance slowly blended into the surrounding confusion. What remained was the weight of a body. Leon's knees trembled as he lifted her; remembering that a single unnecessary spell could expose a trace, he kept his movements small. Clara's head fell beside his shoulder. She was breathing.

Leon was glad of that.

He didn't consider what his gladness looked like.

Those rescued by the protective field were being moved out. The transport route along the ground was kept open for people to pass; the surface facing the enemy pointed the other way. Leon had entered the place where everyone was trying to save people beneath a rescue item, and beneath that same item, he was taking someone away.

When Galahad's hand descended on the back of Percy's neck, Leon was behind the last rocky outcrop.

He heard no scream. Only the conversation stopping.

In that silence, he began to run.

When Eleanor withdrew her hand from Sophia's face, she meant to turn back to Clara.

First, she saw the blanket.

Then the empty space upon it.

For a moment, she thought nothing. The place where she'd just laid her daughter seemed as senseless as an object put in the wrong spot. She turned her head. Clara might have got up and gone elsewhere. She might have gone to Percy. Eleanor would be angry with her for leaving before she could ask how she felt.

"Clara?"

Galahad raised his head.

Eleanor took a step.

"Clara."

This time, her voice had changed.

Holar turned. Looked where Eleanor was looking. Then around himself. He saw every face inside the field. Arthur, Charlotte, William, Marcus. Percy in Galahad's arms. Six bodies being moved separately along the ground.

Clara wasn't there.

"Is she with you?" Eleanor asked.

No one answered.

With Arthur's help, Galahad laid Percy on safe ground. Holar's face had turned to stone. Without a word, he opened up every flow around the field. Broken spells, scattered monster traces, people's Orin heightened by fear—all began to separate from one another.

In one place, there was less information than there should have been.

The space around an object.

A narrow absence left by a piece of fabric.

Holar extended his hand that way. The webs outside tore apart. Old shells in the darkness scattered. But there was no child where the first sweep reached. A few steps farther on were displaced stones and crushed grass. Beyond that began the tangled traces spreading from the passages Melanos had opened.

Eleanor went that way.

Galahad descended from another angle.

Holar secured the protection behind them and followed. This time, none of their voices could be called calm. They weren't trying to look calm. The fear they'd had to control in front of the children was now too large to hide.

"Clara!"

Eleanor's voice waited for an answer among the trees.

Nothing came.

William knelt beside the empty blanket.

Not to see something, but to remember the correct order of what he'd seen. Clara had been lying here. Eleanor had checked her wrist. Percy had been on the other side. Galahad's hand had been on his shoulder. Arthur had been beside William. Marcus had been guarding the other line. Charlotte had knelt beside Nathaniel.

Then Percy had released his fire.

Then everyone had turned.

William raised his head.

Turning to see one movement meant not seeing another. They'd been taught that lesson over and over. Now the lesson had become a human-shaped emptiness on the ground.

Charlotte called out.

"William."

William turned.

"Help me."

She was trying to position Nathaniel's head a little more comfortably. The healing light in her hand wasn't fading, but it wasn't receiving the response she expected either. William rose to walk toward her. His knees wouldn't straighten properly. He gripped the edge of the rock with one hand.

Arthur left Percy's side and went to Charlotte. The moment he held Nathaniel's shoulder, a sound escaped his mouth. Only a few hours ago, he'd been talking to him. Nathaniel had talked back. Arthur had even told him to shut up when he'd said something at the wrong moment.

Now he was quiet.

Arthur didn't want this silence.

"What do I need to do?" he asked.

Charlotte tried to answer. Then shook her head.

"I don't know."

The moment she said it, she began to cry.

Marcus stood at the edge of the protective field. He'd spread his shadow across every entrance. While they searched for one person, he couldn't leave the others alone. A task so simple felt like the hardest thing he'd ever done. He wanted to go to his six friends, to check whether Percy was breathing, to search for Clara's trail.

He wanted to look in three different places at once.

He didn't move.

"I'm here," he said.

Only after saying it did he realize no one had called him.

During the first minutes of the search, Eleanor raised her voice at no one.

Not because she was calm. She didn't want her own voice to drown out the chance of hearing her daughter's. She looked into every gap between the trees. She thinned her wind enough to read lingering warmth and traces of fabric on the ground. A dragged leaf, moisture disturbed on a stone, a snapped twig; for an instant, each became a direction in which Clara might be.

None led to her.

At one point, she found a thin thread torn from her daughter's clothes. She held it between her fingers. Recognized its color. That morning, as Clara came down the stairs, she'd seen the same gold near her collar. She hadn't said anything then. Now she had to force herself to consider letting that color go.

When Holar came beside her, Eleanor raised her head.

"She passed this way."

Holar saw the thread. Then looked at the surrounding traces.

"She was carried."

Eleanor's face went blank.

A second later, it hardened again.

"Who?"

Holar didn't answer. They had no right to name the wrong person, to run with all their power in the wrong direction. That wasn't an explanation Eleanor would want to hear at that moment. He didn't want to hear it himself.

Galahad returned from a little farther ahead.

"The passages connect. Melanos is heading into its own territory."

"Where is my daughter?"

Galahad stopped.

Eleanor repeated the question to make clear she wasn't asking about passages.

"Where is my daughter?"

"I haven't found her yet."

Eleanor closed her hand around the thread. For an instant, the air compressed around her. The leaves on the trees turned over. Then she withdrew the pressure. She knew that if she uprooted the entire forest in the wrong place, she could harm the child she sought too. Never before had not using her power felt so heavy.

Holar closed his eyes.

The region into which Melanos had withdrawn wasn't dangerous because of the name written on the map. It was dangerous because they didn't know everything inside it. The King Monster's new pressure had spread into a deeper area, and the passages connected while carrying different parts of the same aura. Following one didn't always mean following the body itself. They'd just learned that in the worst possible way.

Holar could disperse that pressure.

He could tear the forest apart.

He could close every passage that had opened.

He didn't know which one held Clara.

He opened his eyes.

"Galahad, go back."

As Galahad prepared to object, Holar continued.

"Percy will wake up."

His brother's expression changed. For a moment, he wanted to look both ways at once. Eleanor had already walked deeper. Holar wouldn't leave her alone.

"Find her," Galahad said.

Holar's answer didn't come out like a promise.

"We're looking."

When the emergency support unit reached the protective field, no one wanted to explain what they needed to do.

Charlotte had to explain again.

Clara had been injured. Percy had healed her. Then she'd disappeared. The other six... Her voice stopped at that part of the sentence. A healer on duty knelt beside her. Shortened the questions. Rather than ask Charlotte to stop the magic in her hands, the healer checked the same things first.

No response came from Nathaniel.

Nor from Ethan.

Daniel, Lucas, Sophia, Amelia.

Six separate examinations. Six separate silences.

When Charlotte saw the healer withdraw a hand from the last body, she shook her head. Sometimes people shook their heads in protest. She shook hers as though she couldn't move it any other way.

"No."

The healer didn't look away from her. Waited a moment before saying what had to be said. Charlotte wanted that moment to stretch. If the words didn't come, there might still be something to try.

"I'm so sorry."

Arthur turned his face away.

For the first time, Marcus left the defensive line. He crouched beside Ethan. His bag strap was trapped beneath his shoulder. Marcus straightened it. His hands were surprisingly steady as he worked. When he finished, he didn't know what to do. He left his hand on his friend's shoulder.

William looked at the blankets the staff unfolded.

There were six.

He couldn't open his mouth because he didn't want to ask them to prepare one more. If they'd prepared one fewer, he would have corrected them. The thought made him nauseous. All his life, counting had been his first tool for ordering chaos. Now, whatever number he reached, the result didn't change.

The officer asked for their identities.

William answered.

"Nathaniel Reed."

The pen moved.

"Ethan Brooks."

The pen moved again.

"Daniel Crawford. Lucas Ferran. Sophia Mercer."

He stopped before the last name. His voice broke as he said Amelia's first name. He'd never imagined sitting in the same classroom with someone for years and then having to give their name for an entirely different record.

"Amelia."

The officer completed the entry from her identification. William didn't look at the finished lines.

A Shiri vibrated a short distance away.

It was in Nathaniel's bag.

Arthur reached in and took it out. The screen lit briefly. A message had come from his mother. She was asking what time they'd return that evening. At the end, she'd added a reminder to share his food with his friends.

Arthur couldn't turn the screen toward Charlotte. He tried to close it. His hand touched the wrong place, and the text opened again.

William took the device from him. He didn't answer the message. He merely darkened the screen and carefully placed it inside the bag.

Nathaniel had shared the food.

Someone would have to tell his mother that.

When Galahad returned, Percy was still unconscious.

He knelt beside his brother. Looked at the spot on the back of his neck where he'd struck him, then checked his breathing. Knowing he was all right didn't make what he'd done feel right. He also knew that if he had to make the same choice again in that moment, he would. That knowledge made his hand heavier still.

Arthur came beside him.

"Clara?"

Galahad raised his head.

"They're looking."

For an instant, anger crossed Arthur's face. Then it scattered, unable to find anyone to belong to. He looked into Galahad's eyes. What he saw wasn't an answer being withheld from him, but an answer no one had found yet.

"What will you tell Percy?"

Galahad looked at his brother.

"I don't know."

Arthur fell silent. He hadn't expected to hear those words so often from so many powerful people in a single day.

At that moment, an image from an unknown device arrived on Galahad's Shiri.

The first frame showed only dark fabric. Then the fabric opened a little. Clara's face appeared. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing.

Galahad stood up.

Another face entered the image.

Six years had changed Leon's face. But Galahad didn't need to reach six years into the past to recognize him. That moment beside the lake had never gone far enough away.

"Show Percy when he wakes up," Leon said.

Galahad's fingers tightened around the edge of the device.

"This time, I won't just kill him."

The image cut off.

Galahad's hands shook as he forwarded the same transmission to Holar and Eleanor.

When Eleanor opened the image, Leon wasn't the first person she looked at.

Clara's chest was moving.

The image was very brief. Still, that tiny movement was there. Eleanor played the same part again. Her hand remained over the screen. She enlarged her daughter's face; saw the dirt in her hair, the tired line beside her mouth, her closed eyes.

She was alive.

That knowledge didn't remove part of her fear. It changed its shape.

"Leon," she said.

Holar stood beside her. His expression bore no resemblance to the one he'd worn when driving Leon from his house years ago. That day, he'd been able to make a decision and carry it out. Now a decision wasn't enough. First, they needed to find where the girl was.

He missed no detail in the image. The edge of the dark fabric. The color of the stone behind it. The faint reflected light. The identity of the device Leon used. A Shiri he could operate despite its not being his own.

"The cloak," he said at last.

Eleanor raised her head.

"Is that how he took my daughter out?"

"The trace points to it."

Eleanor's hand closed. The air sharpened. Then she stopped herself again. She looked at Holar's face; for the first time, her anger turned directly toward him.

"You were there."

Holar didn't look away.

"Yes."

"So was I."

Eleanor's voice broke on that second sentence.

Holar didn't reach toward her. He looked at his own palm. With that hand, he'd stopped countless attacks and pushed back destruction passing over cities. Moments ago, the same hand had reached toward the empty space left by a single child.

"We'll search without destroying," he said. "We'll find her first."

Eleanor nodded. It wasn't acceptance. She was hearing the name of what she had to do.

A new location came from Galahad. The support unit was moving the children to a more secure evacuation point. Percy had stirred.

Holar closed his eyes. For an instant, the weight of the decision was visible on his face.

Then he sent signals to hand the search over to the other teams. Eleanor didn't withdraw her wind; keeping the main trails open, she joined him on the route back. The area they searched had long since ceased to be a single point they could close upon with force.

Galahad's voice came through the connection again.

"How did we miss this?"

Holar didn't answer immediately. He reconstructed the area from a few minutes earlier in his mind. The heavy signature to the north. The children's line dividing in two. The steady pressure he'd thought belonged to Melanos. All the information that had seemed consistent.

"We looked for the form we knew," he said at last. "We didn't test what we found again."

Galahad's breathing came through.

"The signature was at the limit of the Advanced class."

"The body wasn't there."

"I should have realized."

Holar's face hardened. That hardness wasn't directed at Galahad.

"So should I."

Eleanor turned toward him. Holar's voice neither rose nor diminished as he named his own mistake. He didn't try to shield the sentence with his authority. Six children no longer breathing in the forest wasn't something a correct explanation could fix.

Galahad spoke.

"We didn't wait for the first blow."

"No."

"We moved the moment it released its aura."

"Yes."

Galahad was silent for a few seconds.

"We were still too late."

Eleanor's gaze lowered to the thread in her hand. The expression on someone's face could change in an instant, regardless of how many years you'd known them. In the pause when Holar gave no answer, Galahad couldn't see either of them; still, he knew they were thinking the same thing.

Their speed hadn't been lacking.

They'd learned which direction to go too late.

"Percy won't want an explanation for this," Galahad said.

"We're not looking for an explanation right now either," Holar replied. "We're separating what happened so we don't do the same thing twice."

Eleanor raised her head.

"Clara first."

Both fell silent.

Eleanor continued.

"I'm not saying don't tell me about the mistakes. I'm saying don't give me a lesson. My daughter has been taken."

Holar looked into her eyes.

"I know."

"I left her three steps away."

Her voice broke at the end. Three steps. A far shorter distance than the three hundred meters Percy would soon mention. Eleanor walked those three steps again in her mind. Took her hand from her daughter's wrist. Turned to Sophia. Looked back. Everything returned to the beginning like an image she could change if she watched closely enough.

Every time she looked back, the same emptiness was there.

Holar placed his hand over her closed fist.

"We're looking for her."

Eleanor didn't pull her hand away. Nor did she squeeze his. After remaining like that for a while, she nodded and opened the image on her Shiri again.

"Where is this fabric from?"

Galahad had sent the device's identity to the team at headquarters. The first reply came quickly. It belonged to a mage recently reported missing. One of its last transactions was a purchase at the Mages' Specialty Store. The edge of the fabric in the image matched the record of the concealment cloak purchased.

Galahad's voice hardened again as he relayed this.

"He may have killed someone else too."

Holar lowered his head. There were no details yet to confirm that possibility. But that person's belongings being in Leon's possession showed that this wasn't the only crime they needed to investigate.

Eleanor was looking at the screen.

"I went to her. Held her wrist. She was breathing."

Galahad listened quietly. Eleanor wasn't repeating the same sentence; she was trying to hold on to a fact that was still true.

"She still is," he said.

A tear ran from Eleanor's eyes.

"I know."

This time, there was a little strength in the sentence.

Before ending the connection, Holar looked at Galahad.

"Don't hide anything when Percy wakes up."

Galahad lowered his eyes to his brother on the ground.

"He might hate me."

Holar didn't give a long answer.

"Stay beside him anyway."

When the connection ended, Galahad wanted to put his hand on Percy's head. He stopped a few centimeters away. Then rested his hand on his knee. This time, he would wait for Percy to wake up, ask his own question, and finish what he wanted to say.

When Percy first woke, he saw Galahad's arm.

For a moment, he thought he'd exhausted himself at the old camp and fallen asleep in a chair. There was a slight ache at the base of his neck. People were talking outside. Someone was closing a bag; someone quietly asked a name. Nathaniel would surely say something amid this much silence.

Percy turned his head.

Nathaniel's voice didn't come.

He remembered.

As he tried to sit up, Galahad touched his shoulder.

"Slowly."

Percy's eyes searched his surroundings.

"Where's Clara?"

Galahad didn't answer. Percy looked past him. Arthur was a little way ahead. Charlotte sat on the ground. William hadn't opened the notebook in his hand. Marcus faced the entrance. The same thing was on all their faces, but none looked ready to say it.

"Clara?"

Galahad moved in front of him.

"Percy, listen to me."

"I'm asking about Clara."

"I know."

"I healed her. She stood up."

"Yes."

"Then where is she?"

Galahad's hand grew a little heavier on his shoulder. Percy noticed that weight. At that moment, he also placed the pain at the back of his neck in its proper context. He looked at his brother's face.

"You hit me."

Galahad didn't lie.

"Yes."

Percy remained silent for a few seconds. Then he asked so quietly that his own voice frightened him.

"What happened while I was asleep?"

Arthur turned his face away. Charlotte covered her mouth. William wanted to step forward but couldn't find what to say.

Percy stood up.

Galahad reached to hold him.

"WHERE IS CLARA?"

Fire didn't unfold around Percy. He needed no magic for his voice to carry far enough. The support unit's people stopped. A healer gripped the blanket in their hands tightly to keep from dropping it.

"Blaze, come."

As the staff came toward his palm, Galahad's hand caught Percy's arm. Blaze changed direction slightly. Its dark body struck Galahad's wrist from the side. As Galahad tried to secure his hold without hurting his brother, the weight on his knee shifted. Percy slipped through.

The staff settled into his hand.

Galahad straightened. He was strong enough to stop the brother before him. He also knew now what he would lose if he knocked him unconscious again. He didn't prepare a second blow.

Percy looked at everyone's faces.

"One of you is going to answer."

Holar and Eleanor reached the evacuation area at that moment.

Percy saw his grandfather first. Then the thin gold thread in Eleanor's hand. It had torn from Clara's clothes. Percy knew that color. For a while, he couldn't take his eyes from the thread.

"Where is Clara?"

Galahad came beside him.

"Leon took her."

Percy's expression didn't change.

The word hadn't reached his face yet.

"What?"

Galahad opened the image on his Shiri. Percy looked at the cloak in the first frame. When he saw Clara, he stepped forward. Then Leon's face appeared.

Percy's fingers closed around Blaze.

The image ended.

"Again."

Galahad played it.

This time, Percy saw Clara breathe. Saw the blackened phoenix on her chest. Saw Leon's face for longer. Saw a person he'd kept outside his life for years looking at him from a place he had never deserved.

The image ended again.

Percy raised his head.

"You two..."

His gaze moved from Galahad to Holar.

"What good are you?"

A muscle moved in Galahad's face. Holar didn't move. No one told Percy how he ought to speak.

Eleanor stepped forward.

"Percy..."

Percy looked at her. Something else entered his anger. On Eleanor's face, he saw not only his own fear, but that first emptiness of a mother who didn't know what to do.

"My daughter," Eleanor said. "My daughter."

Her voice diminished midway through the words. She opened her hand around the thread, then closed it again. Percy opened his mouth. He had nothing to say to her.

Clara's mother was there.

Clara wasn't.

Percy walked two steps with his staff in hand.

On the third, he saw the blankets.

He'd seen them before. Before losing consciousness, he'd seen the faces on the ground, the bodies Eleanor had carefully lifted, the bag slipping from Nathaniel's shoulder. But the blankets had an order. People had laid those who wouldn't return side by side, placing supports beneath them for transport. The necessary tasks had begun for something that, moments ago, had seemed impossible to understand.

Percy wasn't ready for that.

He rested Blaze's tip on the ground. Crouched beside Nathaniel. The blanket didn't cover his face, but he pulled its edge a little lower anyway. As though there was a chance of finding the wrong face beneath the fabric. He brought his fingers to his friend's hair. A strand had stuck to his forehead.

"Nathaniel."

Arthur raised his head.

Percy held his friend's shoulder very gently.

"Nathaniel."

No answer came.

Healing light opened in Percy's palm. Charlotte wanted to come beside him. After one step, she stopped. Percy needed to see this; moments ago, she'd held the same light over and over. Hearing such knowledge from someone else's mouth wasn't the same as seeing it in his own hand.

"Absolute Heal."

Light spread over Nathaniel's chest. Wounds that could close closed. Tissue that could be repaired responded to the spell. The scratch on his face shrank. Percy kept his eyes on his friend's mouth.

No breath came.

He tried once more.

"Absolute Heal."

William lowered his head. Percy's fingers trembled. Not because he was casting the spell incorrectly. Because he was casting it correctly, and what he wanted still wasn't happening. When he found the answer to a problem, he could repeat it. When a move didn't work, he could change its angle. Now he moved his hand to change the angle. The result stayed the same.

"Don't."

He'd said that word to Nathaniel.

"Come on, don't."

He waited for what Nathaniel would ask him. Don't what? I'm already lying down. You said there wouldn't be training today. Any of those would do. Any answer—rude, funny, wrong, ill-timed—would do.

There was silence.

Percy's mouth parted. He took a breath, but nothing followed it. His shoulders shook once. Then again.

"I told you..."

His words collided.

"When we got back..."

Had he said anything? Said he'd buy food? That they'd train again? No, he hadn't needed to say those things explicitly today. Coming back had already been assumed within the conversation. It waited at the end of every joke, every objection, every half-finished sentence.

Percy searched for that unspoken return.

He couldn't find it.

He bowed his head toward his friend's hand. Nathaniel's hand didn't smack his head as he'd expected. His fingers didn't ruffle his hair. Percy's tear fell onto the back of that hand, spread quietly, and stayed.

"Wake up, dammit."

The words no longer sounded like an order.

"Please."

Arthur covered his face with his arm. Charlotte didn't sit beside him; her own knees gave out as she tried to stay standing. William thought he wouldn't cry as long as he looked at the ground. When the first drop fell inside his glasses, he had to remove them.

Percy raised his head.

"I came back."

He looked at Holar's face.

"Grandpa, I came back."

Holar came a few steps closer. Crouched beside Percy. Before him was a child waiting for him to reach out—a child whose every ounce of power still couldn't tell him how to do what was being asked.

"I know."

"Then bring him..."

Percy couldn't finish the sentence. He knew that finishing it would make the request real, something that had to be accepted or refused. Still, he had to finish.

"Bring him back too."

Holar didn't close his eyes.

"I don't know how."

Percy's face crumpled.

"Don't say that."

Holar's hand came to rest on his grandson's shoulder.

"Percy."

"Don't say you don't know. Everyone's saying that today. William says it. Charlotte says it. My brother says it. Don't you say it."

Holar didn't answer. For the first time, his hand on Percy's shoulder felt not heavy, but terribly helpless.

Percy went to the others too.

He couldn't decide an order, not because he loved any of them less, but because he didn't know which order would hurt less. He rose from Nathaniel's side and turned toward Ethan, then saw Sophia and stopped. Charlotte had straightened the bandage around Sophia's wrist. The knot was in the same place. Something she'd fixed that morning had managed to stay right into the evening. A person hadn't.

Percy placed his palm on Sophia's forehead.

The light opened again.

Then he sank beside Ethan. Saw the undone shoelace. He tried tying it with one hand; his fingers couldn't hold the knot. He tried a second time. Arthur came beside him. Without speaking, he took the other end of the lace. Together, they fixed it.

Arthur was looking at the knot.

"He was sleepy this morning," he said.

Percy nodded. Ethan being sleepy was normal. Everyone knew that. He didn't want to think that it would no longer become another joke told to them.

When he reached Daniel, Arthur spoke first.

"I'd said I wouldn't make him repeat the last round again."

Percy lifted his eyes to him.

Arthur swallowed.

"I was joking."

Percy had no answer to give. He touched Daniel's shoulder. The voice that objected to everything was gone now. While adjusting a mission formation, he could have known without thinking which sentence Daniel would challenge. Next time, he'd have to complete that sentence himself.

Marcus brought Lucas's staff. It wasn't broken. That fact relieved them for an instant; then both realized what they were relieved about and fell silent. Percy placed the staff beside his friend. He didn't close Lucas's fingers around it. Instead, he set a small stone beside it to keep it from rolling away.

Amelia's signal rod had fallen out of her bag. William picked it up and put it back. Percy didn't stop him. What she'd repaired remained repaired. The little task whose turn had come was finished. The greater thing that ought to follow it hadn't come.

He looked at each of them.

For each, he remembered another morning.

In the end, he remained among them. There was no magic in his hands anymore. Not because he didn't know what he wanted to do; his hands were empty because none of what he wanted to do received an answer.

"I said you could improve."

No one interrupted.

"I told you to get used to each other."

Percy's voice grew smaller.

"I sent them."

He'd sent Clara too. Not to save someone, but to make sure their friends were all right. The two small orders he'd given linked together in his mind. Go. Look. Then come back.

Nathaniel hadn't come back.

The others hadn't come back.

Clara hadn't come back either.

Percy knew a leader couldn't see every path in the middle of a battle. That was why he'd chosen William. Chosen Marcus. Called Clara Guiding Light. Taught them to use what someone else saw.

Now he could see no path before him.

When Galahad approached, Percy tried to stand.

"Don't touch me."

Galahad stopped.

The old love behind Percy's words hadn't vanished. That didn't make the sentence hurt less. Galahad slowly lowered his hands.

"I couldn't leave you there."

"I didn't say I wanted to die."

"I know."

"I wanted to talk."

Galahad's expression changed.

Percy looked at him. Tears ran from his eyes. He didn't raise his voice.

"I was talking, big brother."

Galahad couldn't answer.

This time, he saw more clearly what his own fear had silenced. He'd kept his brother alive. But he hadn't heard what his brother had been trying to tell him. Both could be true at once.

Galahad sank to his knees. Not to place himself below Percy, but because he couldn't keep standing on his own feet.

"I thought I was going to lose you again."

Percy's chin trembled.

"I've already lost them."

Adrian Wycliffe received the news in the middle of a sentence.

In the classroom, Theodore was answering a question, and Elias raised his finger to point out what he thought was wrong. Noah Bennett stood by the window. Adrian Cole had opened his notebook and was waiting for something to write. The fact that twelve of their friends were in the field today had made the empty side of the classroom seem ordinary all morning. It was a mission day. They would return that evening. The topic of next lesson's conversation was already clear.

When Wycliffe read the first line on his device, Theodore couldn't finish his sentence.

His teacher's face had changed.

"Professor?"

Wycliffe raised his hand. Not to tell them to be quiet, but to ask them to give him a moment. He read the message to the end. Then returned to the beginning. He'd called some of those names in the same order on the attendance roll for years. Now those names were in another list.

He pulled out the chair.

Didn't sit.

"Today..."

His voice failed. He cleared his throat.

"Stay here."

Theodore stood up. When Wycliffe looked into his eyes, the boy didn't ask the question he'd been about to ask. Their teacher went through the door. Outside, he rested a hand against the wall for a while. Then called the support line.

When the officer began speaking, he interrupted.

"I know the names."

Saying that sentence was no easier than hearing them once more.

"I'll handle contacting the families."

Then he closed his eyes.

"Don't leave the children alone."

The air in the evacuation area had begun to cool.

Percy held Nathaniel's bag in his lap. No one asked why he'd taken it. Some of the packages inside were crushed. With his fingers, he straightened the string Nathaniel's mother had tied. He'd undone the same knot that morning. Now he didn't want to open it again.

Clara's image was on the Shiri again.

Percy handed the bag to William. Stood up. This time, Galahad didn't step in front of him.

"Where is Melanos?"

Holar answered.

"It retreated into King Monster territory. We're following the traces that opened up with it."

"Is Clara there too?"

"There's a trace of Leon heading that way. We haven't found the exact location yet."

Percy's eyes narrowed again. He wanted to calculate something. Distance, direction, time. Everything he held became a question, and none yielded a coordinate.

"The phoenix..."

He didn't finish.

He remembered the moment the little bird had burned on her chest. It had taken him to Clara. Done what it promised. Once. A single summons. The necklace wouldn't open a second door. The fire inside wasn't a sign that would be reborn, but the final glimmer of a chance already used.

Percy raised his arm and looked at Life's Echo on his wrist. The bracelet Clara had fastened with her own hands was still there. The paired stone she held carried his heartbeat. It wouldn't tell him where Clara was. He'd known that from the beginning. Now he didn't want to know.

He tried to feel the bond of Perfect Match. There was the rhythm he'd found when they fought together. The closeness in which he recognized Clara's light. But the bond wasn't a map to spread over the forest. It didn't tell him where to go.

Percy lowered his wrist.

Holar didn't give him a false direction.

That increased Percy's anger toward him that day. Then, for an instant, Percy saw what lay beneath his anger: he wanted his grandfather to know something. He wanted the strongest person in the world to hold the one answer he didn't have. It wasn't so different from waiting for a door to open in a dark room as a child.

"Bring her back," he said.

Eleanor raised her head.

"We will."

Holar didn't correct that sentence. He knew it wasn't a report of an outcome, but a mother's resolve to remain standing.

Galahad came beside Percy. He left an arm's length between them.

"We'll search together."

Percy didn't look at him.

"Are you going to put me to sleep again?"

Galahad's breath stopped for an instant.

"I'm listening to you now."

Percy turned his eyes toward him. His brother wore no expression designed to persuade him. There was exhaustion. Fear. There was someone who'd lived since the lakeside to avoid returning to the same place, only to find himself there again.

Percy's chin trembled.

"I didn't want to go alone."

Galahad was silent.

"I wanted to be beside my friends."

"I know."

"And Clara."

Galahad's eyes filled. This time, he didn't reach out. He waited for Percy to approach him. Percy didn't approach, but neither did he withdraw.

Arthur watched them for a while. Then came beside them. Charlotte followed him. William carefully set the bag down. Marcus handed his place near the entrance over to a guard and turned toward them.

Five people stood not around Percy, but beside him.

One place was empty.

None tried to fill that space.

As the support staff prepared to move the six bodies, Percy's eyes returned to Nathaniel.

They straightened the edge of his blanket. Didn't separate his bag from his other belongings. William checked the labels himself so their personal effects wouldn't get mixed up. He looked unable to bear another mistake. Charlotte straightened Sophia's bandage one final time. Arthur showed the officer carrying Ethan's staff how to place it. Marcus looked at Lucas's belongings once more before handing them over.

Percy saw every one of those small movements.

His team was still trying to protect people.

What could be protected had grown smaller. A body carried properly. A bag not separated from its owner. The wrong belongings not reaching a mother's hands. A name not written incompletely.

Percy's chest tightened once more.

He'd said they would spread their first spark through the world.

Now, where Nathaniel was being carried, the last remaining line of sunlight passed across the blanket and disappeared.

Percy took a step. Then stopped. There were two directions he wanted to go. In one, his friends were being taken home. In the other was the darkness into which Clara had been taken. He couldn't go both ways at once.

Holar stood beside him. He didn't point Percy in a direction. He listened to information from the teams continuing the search, reevaluating every new trace. Eleanor still held the thread torn from her daughter's clothes. Rather than trying to guess what Percy hadn't told him, Galahad waited for him to open his mouth.

Percy remembered Clara's last words.

I will, Perc.

She would let him know. She would see that they were all right, then come back.

Percy turned toward the forest.

First, he said her name quietly. As though an answer might come. As though she might emerge from behind a tree and ask why he was shouting.

"Clara."

Wind passed through the leaves.

Percy's lips trembled. He couldn't hold his voice in. He shouted without using his fire, his Orin, or anything he'd learned. No ability carried that sound.

"CLARA!"

Inside the stone hollow in King Monster territory, sounds traveled differently.

The forest outside still caught the wind. Here, air seeped slowly through narrow passages, leaving a faint vibration as it passed through webs clinging to the walls. Leon knew that sound now. In one of the passages where he'd once waited for his own death, he stood this time carrying someone else.

He opened the edge of the cloak.

Clara's face became visible again.

Leon carefully laid her on a flat stone. Placed folded fabric beneath her head. From outside, the gesture might have looked like protecting someone. His desire to keep the person he'd released from his arms here changed its meaning.

Clara wasn't asleep. She was unconscious. Her breathing was steady; the blackened phoenix on her chest rose a little with each breath, then settled into the same place. Leon reached to touch the bird. Feeling the extinguished seal inside the metal, he withdrew his hand. He didn't want to break it. He didn't yet know what he would be breaking.

A heavy voice came from behind him.

Melanos stood at the entrance to the narrow passage. One of the plates Holar's blow had shattered was missing. It kept that side of its body away from the ground. Becoming a King hadn't made every other power in the world smaller than itself. Leon understood that from the creature's movement.

Melanos saw that he understood too.

"You knew those humans would come."

Leon didn't answer immediately.

"I was here because I couldn't get near them."

"You didn't tell me about the three of them."

Leon watched the girl before him breathe. For a moment, he recalculated how much protection his bargain offered. Asking for a reward was one thing; staying outside the anger of the being granting it was another.

"You crossed the threshold you wanted," he said. "And I got what I wanted."

Melanos's shadow grew a little larger. Leon remembered the spiders in the old passage. He reduced the smile on his face, but didn't erase it entirely.

The creature looked at Clara. Then withdrew into the deeper darkness. It was going to seal every route in its territory again, to prepare somewhere to hide its wounded body. One of the first things its new power had taught it was not to show itself before every powerful being.

Leon sat beside the stone.

The Shiri was dark now. He hadn't seen what the image he'd sent had done on the other end. He didn't know Galahad's expression, the thread in Eleanor's hand, the directions Holar searched. Nor had he seen Percy kneeling among his six friends.

Still, he knew Percy was suffering.

He held tightly to that knowledge.

Clara's fingers moved slightly. Despite the distance, the little paired stone in her palm still vibrated. Life's Echo was doing its job. Percy's heart was beating. Clara's closed hand remained around that tiny rhythm.

Leon didn't see it.

He looked at the extinguished bird on her chest. Then at her face.

He'd imagined a scene like this at the end of the corridor where he'd been rejected years ago, the room he'd entered without permission, the doors that had closed. Now the scene was before him. With Clara's eyes closed, he couldn't see how she looked at him.

He didn't consider that a loss.

Far away, Percy was shouting not his name, but Clara's.

Leon was looking at Clara.