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Rhea pinned it with a triangle of heat and John ended it with that same inch of hush at a hinge that does not enjoy reconsidering its life choices.

"Nine," Fizz said, a little breathless now. "We are a marching song."

They paused at a stream to rinse blood and boast modestly. Rhea retied her ribbon with a tug that meant business. Ray stared at his own forearms, surprised to find them useful when he asked them to be. John watched a water strider carve an invisible map and thought about strategies that didn't need applause.

"Last one for five points," Rhea said. "Keep it clean."

They kept it clean. A Sandcrest monitor tried to be interesting by pretending to be a log. They politely informed it that its performance bored them. It died with less theater than it wanted. Ten cores, five points, day two not trying to be a poem about tragedy.

On the way back to log the haul, they crossed a trail where the dirt told the wrong story: six sets of boots, heavy, careless. A smear on a trunk like someone who had never hunted had tried to fake a hunting accident and accidentally admitted to being a fool. Fartray's perfume clung to the air like an expensive lie.

"Keep moving," Rhea said. "Do not step where they want you to."

They did not. They cut a diagonal no one had planned for, stepped light where other men would stomp, and arrived at the post precisely when the proctor who disliked adverbs wanted to pack up.

"Ten," the proctor said, stamping, adding, not bothering to hide that she was impressed when young teams did adult work without making adult messes. She slid their tally into the narrow slot that fed the academy's hungry, humming point machine. The slate above the desk ticked. Team Lord Fizz: 5 pts. Points will divide equally. Each person has 1.25 points.

"Please admire responsibly," Fizz told his teammates, tail very nearly sparking for joy. "We will accept flowers later."

Ray stared at the slate as if it had threatened him and then decided not to. "Five," he said, and for once did not attach a speech about being a Flame to the end of the number.

"Eat," Rhea said, which, for her, was emotion.

They headed back to camp with the late afternoon leaning warm against their necks. A group of first-years trudged past them, two short on members, shoulders speaking grief. The jungle had collected on schedule. Fizz dropped lower and dimmed his glow out of respect. John pressed his palm to his coat where a note had lived and reminded himself that kindness is also a weapon, wielded inward first.

At camp, Fizz held an official Team Lord Fizz debrief under the ironwoods. He produced from somewhere a stub of charcoal and drew a ridiculous logo on the inside of their shelter flap: a very heroic soup bowl with a lightning bolt and a tiny crown. Rhea sighed. Ray snorted. John let it be. Teams need small banners to hang from small nails inside their ribs.

"Tomorrow," Rhea said, tapping the dirt grid. "No greed. No heroics. We confirm the tally, take more conservative kills, and turn home before the forest thinks we are decorations."

"Agreed," John said.

"Agreed," Ray said, surprising himself.

Fizz flopped down on his bedroll with a sigh that implied he had lifted mountains. "I will compose our official team motto," he announced to the patchwork sky. "Possibly in couplets. Possibly with rhyme."

"Short," Rhea said.

"Ruthless," John added.

"On fire," Ray tried, then looked embarrassed.

Fizz beamed. "Perfect. Team Lord Fizz: short, ruthless, on fire. We will embroider it on handkerchiefs."

Night came like an old friend with new shoes. They ate, argued about whether a biscuit counts as bread or happiness, and set watches. The hornets had found different problems tonight. The jungle tried three small tests and gave up, annoyed that cleverness had rented this patch of ground for the weekend.

Far off, someone howled his rage at a nest that did not care about lineage. Closer, Ned White's laughter cut the dark like polished glass. The world kept its secrets by making them very loud.

John lay on his back with his arm tucked under his head and watched the ironwood's lace against the stars. In the black place inside him, the egg rolled once more, patient and hungry and full of possibility. He had not told anyone yet. He did not have to. Some secrets are seedlings. You don't pull them up by the roots just to marvel at their bravery.

"Five points, we need fifteen more points," Fizz murmured from the next bedroll, drowsy and delighted. "Team Lord Fizz will collect them tomorrow."

"Sleep," Rhea ordered, already half gone herself.

"Sleeping," Ray muttered, not complaining for once.

John smiled into the dark where no one could see him do it. Tomorrow the world will ask new questions. For tonight, the answers they had were enough.

They slept while the jungle rehearsed. The camp slept like a held breath.

Ironwood shadows made a lattice over four bedrolls, and the jungle hummed a hush it pretends is kindness. Rhea lay on her side with one palm under her cheek and the other on the hilt of her knife, as if the blade were a lullaby. Ray had passed the frontier between tired and asleep with his boots still loosely laced, his mouth slightly open in an argument he was losing to dreams. Fizz snored in decorative cursive — small, pretty loops of sound that rose and fell from the shelter ridgepole where he'd draped himself like a smug lantern. John rested on his back, eyes closed, breath counting the dark in fours, the line in his chest straight, the egg turning once far inside the black place that had taught him.

Out beyond the ring of ironwoods, a different night unfolded.

A figure no one would remember moved like an apology where paths do not agree. Shadow magic loves fear like a cat loves a warm tile. It wraps itself in it, purrs, stares, becomes it. The man wore that power like a scarf knotted too tight. Under his arm hung a stoppered goatskin that did not belong to goats. When he uncorked it, the air recoiled — beast blood salted with bitter spice and something ground fine from a little gray jar that did not want to say its name.

He worked fast, hands sure, sprinkling loops and swipes of stink in a pattern that meant nothing to men and too much to noses. He took care to keep the wind to his back; he took care to keep the trees between himself and the little camp where a bright thing occasionally sparked in its sleep like a tiny storm refusing manners. He finished, stopped in, no footprints where eyes would look, and slid back into the night with the warm knowledge of coin owed and cruelty planned. (Fartray sent him.)

The jungle took the message like gossip, passed it vine to vine, root to root. Somewhere to the south, a Bramblehorn snorted and forgot why it had been careful its entire life. To the east, a Snarl Ape tasted a wind that spoke murder and agreed. A pack of Stonecoils felt their hunger get teeth. A Ridge-back, all plate and thoughtlessness, turned and trampled a fern that had been considering poetry.

The first thing John got was not a sound. It was a line of calm.

[System Notification: External anomaly detected. Behavioral patterns deviating. Blood-bait blend detected within radius 32 meters. Hostile convergence predicted. Stampede-level event probable within 90–120 seconds.]

The words settled behind his eyes like cold ink. His breath —four in, four out— did not change. He opened his own eyes. The lattice of ironwood shadow had shifted. He didn't sit up fast. He sat up right.

Fizz's ears went up before the rest of him caught up. He spark-thudded off the ridgepole and landed whisper-light on John's shoulder. "," he breathed. Then, sharpening, "No. Something wrong is coming here. That is ruder."

"Get them up," John said, already on his feet.

Fizz threaded the air like an orange needle, tapped Rhea's shoulder with a spark that felt like a breath too close to the wind. Her eyes opened on alert without flinch, the kind of wake an experienced person buys with bad stories. Ray didn't move until Fizz shoved a sugar cube into his mouth and shouted, "Emergency pastry," directly at his dignity. Ray jerked, chewed, cursed, sat bolt upright, and then —because the sugar hit his blood like a deal— stood with both hands on nothing, already ready to set something on fire.

"Talk," Rhea said, low, knife in hand.

"Blood bait around the perimeter," John said. "Madness Drug mixed. Strong. It's already working."

Fizz tilted his head, listening not with ears but with the twitch of whiskers that understand violence. "East, then south. Then everything else. Sounds like a civic parade organized by idiots."

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