It was a small thing, at first: a coded message slipped under the door, written in a cipher Soren recognized from his days as a runner on the south wall. He opened it, scanned the contents, then burned it in the bathroom sink.

He caught Lady Caladwen's gaze in the mirror. "It's nothing," he lied.

But she saw the way his hand tightened on the sink edge. "They're coming for me?"

"They're coming for both of us."

She nodded, unafraid.

That night, Mira checked in by comm bead. "You see anything?"

Soren whispered, "It's in play. Quiet for now."

Mira's voice was thin with static. "Don't improvise."

He smiled, then killed the line.

On the third day, the world changed.

Soren woke before dawn, the city outside hushed and silvered by fog. He checked the window, nothing but the dance of early contact drones, mapping the air for irregularities.

Then, a single knock at the door. Too soft, too measured for a service call.

He opened it a crack, ready for the worst.

On the other side, a boy, maybe twelve, skin to bone, eyes a deep, impossible black. No insignia, no mark. He held out a folded paper, hands shaking.

"For the Lady," the boy croaked.

Soren took it, then watched the boy vanish down the hall, pace accelerating until he was out of sight.

He opened the note in front of her. The script was familiar: Kaelor's hand, but not the official version. This was the old code, the one reserved for warnings that couldn't be spoken.

DO NOT RETURN TO THE CITY.

DO NOT TRUST THE COUNCIL.

DO NOT LET HER OUT OF YOUR SIGHT.

Soren folded the paper, weighed the odds. "We need to leave," he said, voice flat.

Lady Caladwen didn't move. "They're coming now?"

"Yes. And not just for you."

She closed her book, stood, and gathered nothing but the slate coat and the blade from the mantle. "Lead the way, Vale."

They took the back stairs, the kind reserved for kitchen staff and—Soren suspected—people who were meant to be forgotten. At the base, Mira waited, dressed the same as always, but with the edge of her hair now grown out and falling like a blade at her jaw.

"You saw the message," she saidand you're still here," Mira said. She tossed a small satchel at Soren. He caught it, weighed the contents with a practiced hand—ration packs, a rolled cloak, three sticks of emergency glucose, and a slip of parchment sealed with an unfamiliar glyph. The kit of someone who expected to be far from comfort, and maybe from the city itself.

At her side, the Academy guard kept one eye on the gate and the other on Soren, as if the real threat was the possibility he might change his mind. Even Mira, who'd always looked like she'd never once been surprised, seemed more wound than usual, her jaw locked in a way that made Soren wonder if this wasn't, in fact, a demotion but a prelude to vanishing.

They stood in the pale shade of the east arch, the carriage waiting, a mud-streaked relay model, glass dark enough to hide the passenger, lines more functional than ceremonial. Soren slung the satchel over one shoulder, adjusted the fit of the coat, and looked at Mira.

"Four days riding escort to a noblewoman," Mira said. "Could be worse."

Soren eyed the carriage, then the guards. "Could always be worse."

Mira's mouth twitched. "That's the spirit."

The guard nearest the step opened the door. Soren ducked in, the smell of waxed leather and iron instantly familiar. The seat was already warm. On the facing bench, Lady Elyndra Caladwen watched him, hair tied in a braid so tight it could have held a ship together. Her gown, slate this time, looked heavy enough to serve as armor. She wore no jewelry, but the pin at her collar, cold blue, shaped like a falling star, said enough about her priorities.

"You're late, Vale," she said, not looking up from the book in her lap. The pages were blank, as far as Soren could tell.

He sat, careful to keep his knees clear of her dress. "Had to pack light."

Lady Caladwen closed the book, slid it into a bag at her feet, and regarded him with an expression that managed to be both bored and appraising. "You'll address me as 'my lady' when in public. Otherwise, don't talk unless I do."

Soren nodded. "Understood."

Mira entered next, sliding in beside Soren with the easy, predatory grace of someone who had never been caught off guard in her life. She tapped the window. The carriage lurched forward, the gates outside drawing open with a slow, hydraulic sigh.

Soren watched the city recede, the walls of the Division fading into the kind of institutional sameness that made it easy to forget how many stories ended inside them. He pressed his palm against the side of the satchel, feeling the outline of the shard through the coat. A familiar ache, bone-deep and cold.

The carriage picked up speed. The bells of the Academy were still ringing, fainter now, but persistent, as if the sound itself didn't care about the assignment's end date.

Soren glanced at Mira. "You ever run this route?"

She shook her head. "Not with a target painted this clear."

Lady Caladwen smirked, just visible at the edge of Soren's sight. "You think I'm a target?"

Soren scanned the road, the faces at the gate, the way the guards shifted their stance as the carriage passed. "If you're not, someone's not doing their job."

Caladwen studied him, then the city winding out below. "You won't be the first to try and keep me alive, Vale."

He caught the bitter edge in her voice, the notch of something practiced into every syllable. Soren wondered who had failed her before, and how many had been remembered.

Mira produced a dossier, thin and marked only with a time and a set of coordinates. She handed it to Soren wordlessly. He glanced through: route mapped, three checkpoints, a projected threat index that read like a weather report for a lightning storm.

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