The silence that followed Evangeline's declaration was thick and heavy with a gravity that bypassed the laws of the High Lords. Valerica remained in her bow while her breath hitched in the quiet of the room. Vane stood rooted to the spot. He stared at the woman who was essentially the god of Zenith Academy, trying to parse the motive behind such an outrageous offer.

"Personal apprentice?" Vane finally spoke, and the words tasted like ash. "You would bring a child, a fugitive of an Imperial project, into the most scrutinized spire on the continent? You just told us the nobles would turn her into a siege engine. How is the Academy any different for her?"

Evangeline turned away from Mara. Her movements possessed a fluid and terrifying economy. She walked back toward the stone pillar and leaned against it, crossing her arms over her chest. For a moment, the shimmering starlight in her eyes seemed to dim, replaced by a weary and clinical sharpness. The youthful mask she wore, looking no older than Valerica herself, flickered with the weight of centuries.

"The difference, Vane, is that the Academy belongs to me. But even my ownership has its limits," Evangeline said. She looked at her hands, where the fingers that had so recently held a watering can now pulsed with a faint and translucent silver. "You think because I am a Transcendent I can simply wave a hand and erase the Empire's greed? I am a Rank 9 mage, not a miracle worker. I exist within a web of treaties and blood oaths that were woven before you were even born."

She looked up, and for the first time, Vane saw a flicker of something human in her gaze. It was a frustration that bordered on resentment, a crack in the divine facade of a 9th Circle mage.

"My special admission system is a bureaucratic fortress. It is the same system I used to pull you from the mud of Oakhaven and shield you from Gareth's executioners. It allows me to take talents and place them under my direct protection as assets of the state. But that fortress has a gate, and that gate has a minimum age requirement. Mara is only ten years old. I cannot enroll her as a student, and if I try to take her as a ward without a legal anchor, the Imperial Council will be at my doorstep within the hour. They will demand to know why I am hoarding a Grade S variable."

Valerica straightened up, her brow furrowed in confusion. "So you cannot protect her? Even with an Authority like Heaven's Fall?"

"I can protect what is mine," Evangeline said, her voice dropping an octave and sending a literal shiver through the mana of the room. "But the Council decides what is mine based on blood and law. If I take her as a direct apprentice, they will call it an illegal seizure of Imperial property. They will tie me up in litigation and move to seize her by force while the courts deliberate. However, they cannot easily contest a family bond. Not without risking a civil suit that would drag their own dirty laundry into the light."

Vane felt the air leave his lungs. "A family bond?"

"You are Vane. You have no surname, no history, and you are a ghost from the slums," Evangeline said. She walked toward him until she was only inches away. The scent of crushed mint and ancient starlight was overwhelming. "From this moment, the Academy records will be altered. Mara is no longer the nameless variable of the Star Forge. She is Mara, your younger sister. I will be placing her in the Spire as a family dependent under your Rank 1 status."

"My status?" Vane rasped. "I am a first year student with a target on my back. I am barely surviving the purge."

"Exactly," Evangeline said, and she smiled without any warmth. "You are the lightning rod. As long as you are the top ranked prodigy, the eyes of the Empire will stay on you. They will wait for you to fail. They will not look twice at the little sister tucked away in the Headmistress's private wing. Your status provides the legal justification for her presence, while my protection provides the physical safety. It is a symbiotic lie, Vane. One that requires you to keep winning."

Vane looked at the sleeping girl and then back at the most powerful woman on the continent. It was a gamble. It was a trap. It was also the only way forward. He realized that even a Transcendent was forced to crawl through the mud of politics when the Empire was involved.

"You are using me to hide your own inability to fight the Council directly," Vane said.

"I am investing in you," Evangeline corrected him. "And I am investing in her. I cannot resist the Empire's influence through raw power alone. Even I have to play their games, find their loopholes, and use their own laws to choke them. I need you to be the reason she stays. Can you do that, or are you as small as the people who left you in Oakhaven?"

Before Vane could answer, a small and soft sound came from the bed. Mara was sitting up. Her hair was a mess of tangles and her amber eyes were wide as she darted her gaze between the three people in the room. She looked small against the backdrop of the Sol family's opulence. Her gaze bypassed Valerica's silk gown and Evangeline's silver hair, landing squarely on Vane.

She remembered the mercury mud. She remembered the way he had leveled a spear at a God of the Grave just to give her a second of warmth. She remembered the cold and clinical way he had told her to run, even as he was being crushed by the dark.

"Vane?" her voice was small and hesitant.

Vane moved before he could think, crossing the room to the side of the bed. He did not know how to be a brother. He did not know how to be a protector. He simply sat on the edge of the mattress and let her small hand grip the sleeve of his silk shirt.

"I am here," he said.

Mara looked at Evangeline. The child's crystalline resonance flared for a heartbeat, and a tiny hexagonal spark appeared in the air before vanishing. She could sense the ocean deep power radiating from the Headmistress, a power that should have terrified her, yet she saw the way Vane stood his ground against it.

"Is she the one who is going to take me?" Mara asked, looking back at Vane.

"She is the Headmistress," Vane said. His voice was surprisingly soft. "She is going to help us keep you safe. But you will have to come with us to the Academy. You will have to pretend to be my sister."

Mara did not ask about the Sol Manor. She did not ask about her parents or the Project. She simply looked at Vane's bandaged arm and then leaned forward to rest her forehead against his chest.

"If you are going, then I am going," she whispered.

Evangeline watched the exchange with an unreadable expression. For a fleeting second, the terrifying Transcendent seemed to fade, leaving only the woman in the white shirt who was tired of the games. She saw the bond that had been forged in the heat of a collapsing star. It was the kind of origin she could not calculate with mathematics, a variable that defied even her SSS Rank Authority.

She pushed off the pillar and the shimmering silver light in her eyes returned to its full intensity. The domestic illusion was gone.

"The carriage is waiting at the secondary gate," Evangeline said, her voice regaining its command. "The Sol family has played their part, and the Third Division has their hero's funeral. It is time for us to return to the Spire."

"Let's go," Vane said.

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