The alarms didn't sound the same down here.
Up in the lecture wing, they had been clean and commanding, like the academy still believed it could order the world into place. In the lower ring, the sound arrived warped by stone and distance, overlapping itself until it stopped feeling like a warning and started feeling like a countdown.
Jack didn't let it touch him.
He stood in the open corridor with his back to a cracked pillar, posture loose and ready, eyes steady. Not because he was careless. Because people looked for someone to mirror. If he flinched, the hallway would flinch with him.
The Core Four were close, clustered without looking clustered.
Cael Sorein held the junction corner like he owned it, one hand resting on the stone as if he was leaning during a conversation, not waiting for killers. Eva Sol sat near the wall with one knee up, fingers pressed to the tile like she was reading vibrations through the floor. Dren Talvek paced in a short line, not anxious, just gathering heat. Yla Ferren watched the corridor with the patient focus of someone who could afford patience.
Jack glanced at them, then at the dim branch ahead.
"Safe zone is below us," he said quietly. It wasn't a question. It was a direction. "We cut through service access and drop into the lower annex. We move before they herd more people into this ring."
Dren snorted. "You want to lead."
Jack didn't take offense. "Someone has to."
Cael didn't turn. "You don't know the routes."
"I know this building enough," Jack said. "And I know what they do when they control the pace. They turn corridors into traps."
Eva's voice stayed low, calm. "There are two in the north branch."
Jack's eyes sharpened. "Distance."
"Thirty seconds," Eva said. "One is dragging something."
Jack breathed once through his nose, controlled. "Then we do not give them thirty."
Yla's gaze flicked to him. She didn't smile, but something in her eyes approved. Not admiration. Agreement.
A scrape drifted down the corridor. Slow. Unhurried. Like someone pulling cloth over stone.
Then a quiet laugh that did not fit inside a human throat the right way.
Jack lifted his hand, palm down, and the Core Four stilled. Not because he outranked them. Because his signal was clean.
"We do not split," Jack said. "Dren, you hold the rear. Eva, eyes on the floor. Yla, watch high angles. Cael, you are point with me."
Dren's mouth curled. "With you."
Jack ignored the tone. "With me."
The scraping got closer. A soft bump. Then another, like whatever was being dragged kept catching on corners and getting yanked again without care.
Cael finally spoke, voice even. "If they see us, they stop dragging and start hunting."
Jack's gaze stayed on the junction. "Then we make them regret seeing us."
The first figure rounded the branch corner.
He wore a cadet uniform like a costume. The insignia had been scraped off, leaving raw fabric. Dark stains clung to his cuffs. His eyes were too bright and too amused. Behind him, a second figure dragged a body by the collar, careless. The body bumped the stone and left a wet smear that glistened in the emergency lights.
The first man smiled when he saw them. Not surprised. Delighted.
"Well," he said gently, like he had found something valuable. "Look what the academy kept in one piece."
The second figure's eyes narrowed. "It's the boy Azik was talking about."
Jack stepped forward one pace, making sure he was the first thing they measured. He kept his voice calm and simple.
"You're lost," Jack said. "Turn around."
The first man tilted his head. "No, I think we are exactly where we are supposed to be."
Jack didn't blink.
The dragged cadet made a small sound. A cough that turned into a wet choke. Their fingers twitched once against the tile, then went slack again.
The first man tightened his grip and hauled the cadet upright for a moment, just enough to show the face. Eyes open. Unfocused. Mouth parted like the scream had been taken away halfway through.
He smiled at Jack. "Do you save them," he asked softly, "or do you save yourselves."
Jack's expression didn't change. He let the question hang for half a beat, just long enough for the man to think he'd landed it.
Then without answering the question, he moved.
Not a charge. Not a dramatic sprint. A clean step that took space away from the enemy and gave it to his people. His hand flicked, two fingers forward.
Now.
Cael shifted with him, perfectly timed, like their bodies had rehearsed the same decision. Eva's palm lifted from the floor, mana tightening the air in a thin, invisible sheet. Yla's stance widened, her gaze tracking the second figure's hands. Dren stopped pacing and became still, coiled.
The first man's smile widened as if he was pleasantly surprised. "They are actually trying to fight us. Hahaha."
Jack's eyes stayed on the cadet being dragged.
"Eva," Jack said, voice steady.
Eva's answer was immediate. "I see them."
Jack nodded once. "On my mark."
The corridor hummed with wards and blood and distant screams, and Jack stood in the center of it like the sound belonged to someone else. Like fear was a resource, and he refused to spend it here.
"Three," Jack said.
The first man leaned forward, amused. "Counting. Bold."
"Two."
The second figure's grip tightened on the cadet's collar, ready to use them as a shield.
"One."
Jack's gaze sharpened to a point.
"Move."
Jack went first because hesitation was contagious.
The corridor snapped into motion. Eva's mana field spread thin and hard, trying to make the air resist. Yla shifted to an angle that cut off a retreat lane. Dren hit the right side with raw force. Cael moved like a blade, quiet and exact, already looking for joints and hands and leverage.
They met E-rank bodies.
Not just stronger. Better.
Jack's opening strike should have landed. It was fast. It was clean. It was what F-rank training produced when it was pushed to its limit.
The Devil Sect member in front of him made it miss with a minimal shift that didn't look like a dodge. It looked like Jack had swung at the wrong reality.
A hand closed on Jack's wrist mid-swing, and the grip wasn't violent. It was instructional. The man twisted.
Pain shot up Jack's arm, sharp and controlled. Jack rotated with it, tried to turn the hold into leverage, tried to make the exchange costly.
Two knuckles tapped Jack's ribs and his breath stuttered for half a heartbeat. Not enough to drop him. Enough to remind him who owned the tempo.
On the right, Dren's punch landed solid and heavy.
The second Devil Sect member barely shifted. He looked down at Dren like he'd been tapped by a child, then drove a knee into Dren's stomach with brutal economy. Dren folded, spat air, and forced himself to stay upright anyway. The man grabbed his collar and slammed him once into the wall, not to finish him, just to place him.
Eva tightened her field and tried to lock ankles.
The first man stepped through it like it was fog.
He turned his head toward her, smile soft. "Clever."
Eva warped space, a fold designed to make his next step turn into a fall.
His foot hovered for a fraction of a second.
Then he placed it down anyway, as if the floor had decided to cooperate out of respect.
Yla came in from the side, silent, angled for tendons.
He didn't look at her. His forearm snapped out and clipped her shoulder. It wasn't flashy. It was efficient. Yla hit the wall hard enough to make stone flake. She stayed standing, jaw tight, eyes still tracking.
Cael went for the hand, not the body. The grip that controlled Dren. The leverage point.
He struck.
The second Devil Sect member flexed once, and Cael's wrist gave with a sick, quiet snap.
Cael didn't make a sound. He pulled back immediately, broken hand tight to his chest, face still composed in the worst way.
Jack saw it in fragments through pain and motion.
The gap was real. It wasn't dramatic. It was physics.
Jack had cards. He always did. Instincts that made him a leader. A refusal to break. A willingness to take hits that would make other people stop.
None of that closed a rank difference on its own.
The first man tightened his grip and lifted Jack by the throat just enough to tilt the world.
"Still standing," he murmured. "Adorable."
Jack's boots scraped tile. He forced his lungs to keep working. He didn't panic. Panic was for people who had time to waste.
Then a footstep entered the corridor behind the Devil Sect.
Clean. Deliberate. Loud enough to be heard over alarms.
Both intruders reacted instantly. Not fear. Awareness.
The first man loosened his grip just enough to turn his head.
A student stood in the emergency light.
Ordinary uniform. No visible insignia that mattered. No escort. No obvious reason he should be here.
Ley Quinston.
If anyone had been watching closely, they would have noticed the way he held himself. Not cautious. Not desperate. Positioned like the corridor belonged to him.
He looked at the scene for one second.
Then he smiled.
Not friendly. Not cruel. Performative.
"Wow," Ley said, voice carrying just enough to be irritating. "You two are really committed to the whole 'ruin the academy's reputation' thing."
Jack dropped back to the floor, coughing once, hand brushing his throat. He stayed upright because he refused to give anyone the satisfaction.
The first Devil Sect member studied Ley like he was trying to place a face from a list. "Who are you supposed to be."
Ley's smile widened like he'd been asked for an autograph. "A concerned student."
The second man's face twitched. He replied with sarcasm, "Great! Go inform an instructor about your concerns."
Ley scoffed, "I don't need an instructor to resolve my concerns."
He lifted one hand, slow and deliberate, like he was about to make a point in a lecture.
Mana gathered, but it did not flare. It tightened.
The air turned dense, the way it does right before something falls.
Metal answered first.
Not all of it. Just the pieces that were already loose, like the corridor wanted to cooperate.
A shattered fixture screw tore itself out of the wall with a sharp squeal. A loose hinge pin slid free from a doorframe. A cluster of broken tile shards, already cracked from impact, rose from the floor and hovered at Ley's shoulder height like a patient swarm.
Jack felt his skin prickle. Not from heat. From pressure. Like invisible fingers had wrapped around everything in reach.
Ley smiled as if he was enjoying the attention. "You two chose a hallway. Bad choice."
He didn't throw the debris in a spray.
He arranged it.
The tile shards rotated into a thin crescent, edges outward. The hinge pin and screws snapped into a tight line, perfectly spaced, aimed at wrists and ankles, not throats.
Then Ley flicked his fingers.
The corridor snapped.
The first Devil Sect member shifted to dodge on instinct and found a tile shard already there, skimming his forearm and opening a thin red line so clean it looked drawn. The second tightened his grip on the cadet's collar, ready to use them as a shield, and Ley's metal line snapped forward, not at the cadet, but at the hand.
A screw punched the knuckle. A hinge pin struck the tendon line at the wrist. Not deep. Not lethal. Just enough to make the fingers spasm open.
The cadet dropped.
The intruder's eyes narrowed, recalculating.
Ley didn't chase. He let the debris keep moving, orbiting him in a slow, deliberate ring, as if he could hold it there all day without effort. The objects did not wobble. They held position like they were pinned to invisible rails.
The first man's smile faltered. Not gone. Thinner.
Ley tilted his head. "If you want to stay," he said lightly, "I can start using the heavy things."
That's when the faint pulse of mana vibrated through the hall. A call. A recall signal.
Both Devil Sect members paused, listening.
The second man's jaw tightened. "Azik's pulling out."
The first clicked his tongue, eyes still on the debris orbiting Ley like a crown made of bad decisions. "Of course he is."
His gaze slid across Jack and the Core Four, measuring the state they were in, then back to Ley, weighing the cost of staying.
"We can still finish them," the first man said, more stubborn than convinced.
"Not with a timetable," the second replied. "Not with him here making noise."
Ley waved with the same hand that was holding half the corridor in the air. "What? Had your share of fun already? Pathetic."
The first man's eyes flashed. He wanted to strike again. He also wanted to leave alive and on schedule. After a split second, he decided to pull back.
They backed away, smooth and unhurried, retreating into the branch shadows, because staying meant accepting the corridor as a weapon.
The corridor didn't relax. It simply stopped bleeding momentum.
Ley held the debris in the air for another breath, watching them go, as if daring them to change their minds.
Then he lowered his hand slowly, like he was ending a performance.
Everything dropped at once. Screws clattered. Tile shards skittered. Metal bounced and rolled across the floor until it settled into silence.
Jack swallowed, straightened, and forced his breathing to look normal.
Dren pushed off the wall, eyes furious. Eva's fingers trembled once before she forced them still. Yla rolled her shoulder with a tight wince. Cael cradled his broken wrist, face stone.
Ley looked at all of them like he'd just arrived to find an ongoing argument.
"Well," Ley said lightly, "that was unpleasant."
Jack stared at him. "Who are you."
Ley blinked like the question surprised him, then smiled again, delighted by the attention. "Have you forgotten already? I'm Ley Quinston."
Jack's gaze stayed sharp. "Since when do you do that."
Ley's eyes flicked to the debris lodged in the wall, like he was admiring his work. "Since I decided to."
He stepped past them, already moving toward the safer branch without asking permission, without waiting to be thanked.
"Come on," Ley said over his shoulder. "They might throw one last attack before they fully pull back. We should not be here when it lands."
Jack watched him for one beat, then looked at the Core Four.
They were hurt. They were angry. They were alive.
And none of them had any idea why an "ordinary student" had just turned a corridor into a weapon like he belonged at the center of the story.
"Move," Jack said again.
This time, he let Ley walk in front.
Not because he trusted him.
Because leaders knew when to use a variable before they understood it.
***
They moved in a tight, controlled line, stepping around the scattered screws and tile shards Ley had dropped like punctuation. No one spoke for several breaths. The warped alarms did enough talking.
Jack kept his eyes on the corridor ahead, but part of him stayed upstairs, replaying the moment everything split.
They were not supposed to be down here.
None of them were.
The attack had started in the middle of class, and the timing had been cruel in a way only the academy could manage.
Dan had not been in the room.
Not after Kez's little stunt.
A substitute instructor filled in for Dan, and they had been trying to continue like it was normal. Like finishing the lesson would make the day behave.
Then the wards hiccupped.
Not a dramatic breach. A flicker in the lights. A thin vibration in the floor that made Eva's head lift before anyone else even understood something was off.
The acting instructor paused mid-sentence, confused for half a beat, as if waiting for Dan to return and take over.
Then the alarms hit.
Clean and commanding up there, warped and ugly once the building started reshaping itself.
The class went instant-chaotic. Everyone reaching for mana. Everyone looking for leadership that wasn't there.
The acting instructor barked orders anyway. Fast. Loud. Too late.
Front rows, stairwell. No pushing. No spells unless I say so.
Students surged, and the academy surged with them. Doors sealed and reopened on timing that felt deliberate. Corridors pinched, widened, and pinched again like the building was sorting bodies into smaller packets.
Containment.
Herding.
Jack remembered the moment he realized they were being sorted, not saved.
One second they were with the bulk of their section, funneling toward the main stairs.
The next, a warded gate dropped between rows of students like a curtain, silent and immediate. Half the class on one side, half on the other. No warning. No time.
Dren hit it on instinct and bounced back, the ward taking his momentum and giving it back as pain.
Jack made the call then. Not because he knew the right answer. Because hesitation got people trampled.
"Other way," he said, voice low.
No instructor stopped them. No instructor even noticed.
The acting instructor was shouting at a panicked crowd, and Dan was still elsewhere, sealed behind a door with Kez and whatever mess he'd started.
So Jack led, and the Core Four moved with him, slipping into a service corridor meant for staff and maintenance, cutting away from the main flow before the building could swallow them whole.
Then the warded gate brightened and turned opaque behind them, and the rest of their class became a rumor on the other side of glowing ward light.
Now the lower ring had them. The alarms changed shape. The stone changed age. The academy stopped feeling like a school and started feeling like a machine.
Jack pushed the memory down and kept moving.
Behind him, Dren's breathing was sharp behind his teeth. One hand stayed near his stomach like he hated himself for needing it. Yla rolled her shoulder and pretended it was fine. Eva's eyes were a shade too focused, like she was refusing to acknowledge the tremor in her fingers. Cael kept his broken wrist pinned to his chest, knuckles already paling.
Ley walked ahead like he was late to a meeting.
The corridor narrowed where the stonework changed, the academy's clean geometry giving way to older supports and service routes patched over a dozen times. Emergency lights strobed at uneven intervals, and every flash made the debris on the floor look freshly dropped.
Jack kept his voice low. "How do you know where to go."
Ley didn't look back. "I have eyes."
"That's not an answer."
Ley laughed quietly. Light sound, tired edges. "It's the only one you get."
They took a left branch, then another. Ley didn't hesitate at intersections. He didn't scan signage. He moved with the confidence of someone who had already walked the route in his head.
Jack watched the back of his shoulders, the relaxed tilt, the way Ley's hands stayed loose at his sides. Too composed. Either Ley was braver than he should be, or he knew something that made fear optional.
A faint vibration pulsed through the stone again, distant and rhythmic like a heartbeat. It wasn't an alarm. It was mana moving through infrastructure.
Eva's head tilted. "That's not just recall."
Jack's eyes flicked to her. "Then what is it."
Eva pressed her palm to the wall as they walked, fingers brushing along cracks. "A network. Something is being rethreaded. The wards are shifting."
Yla's gaze swept overhead. "For what."
Eva swallowed once. "For containment. Or for a hunt."
Dren made a small, angry sound. "So they lock us in."
Ley finally glanced back over his shoulder, smile thin. "No need for unnecessary paranoia. Looks like faculty regained control of the wards."
Yla didn't blink. "How would you know that."
Ley's smile did not move. "Because I know everything. Hahaha."
The laugh was light, almost self-mocking, like he'd picked the most useless answer on purpose.
Dren frowned. "That's not funny."
Ley lifted a hand in surrender. "Come on. It was a little funny."
Jack watched him. No tension in Ley's shoulders. No defensive edge. Just a careful refusal to be pinned down.
Eva kept her palm on the wall. "The pulse changed," she said. "Cleaner. Less jagged."
Ley nodded once, as if that was the point. "Exactly."
Cael's voice stayed even. "Are you just making this up as you go."
Ley glanced back, smile still in place. "It's easy to infer if you think about it enough."
Yla's eyes narrowed. "Then infer out loud."
Ley hesitated for half a beat, then gave them something, but not enough to feel safe.
"Look at the wards," he said, voice still light. "They're getting less visible."
Dren frowned. "And."
"And that's the point," Ley replied. "When wards go faint, they're not dying. They're compressing so they can take a hit."
Eva's eyes sharpened. "Like bracing."
Ley nodded once. "Exactly. Defensive concentration."
Yla's gaze stayed hard. "So why does that matter."
Ley's smile thinned, not amused this time. "Because that kind of bracing is meant for a big impact. A surge. Something that wants to tear through a ring all at once."
Jack felt the hair on his arms lift. "And you think the Sect wouldn't do that."
Ley's eyes flicked toward the corridor ahead, listening like the building was speaking a language he didn't want to translate. "They could try," he said, softer. "But the Devil Sect likes gaps. Panic. Quick collapses. They don't usually reinforce the cage they're trying to break."
He glanced back at them, polite and slippery again. "If you see the academy reinforcing, it usually means they're expecting a blow, not delivering one."
Eva swallowed. "So something is coming."
Ley's shrug was small. "Something big enough that the building is choosing defense over warning lights."
Dren snorted. "That's still vague and mostly assumption."
Ley's expression turned apologetic, not smug. "I'm not here to deliver a lecture. I'm here to get us out."
Jack didn't like that phrasing. Us. Ley included himself automatically, like the group was a fact and not a decision.
They hit a junction where two branches split into dim, narrow corridors. Ley took one glance and angled right.
Jack lifted his hand, palm down.
Everyone stopped. Ley took one step too far before he realized nobody followed. He turned, eyebrows raised.
"What."
"Why that way," Jack said.
Ley's gaze flicked left, then up to the stone above it, then down to the floor seam. Small details. Too fast. Too practiced.
"Because the left is about to seal," Ley said, casual, like he was calling a bad coin flip.
Dren scoffed. "And you know that because you know everything."
Ley's smile softened. "No. Because it's already starting."
Eva pressed her hand to the left wall, eyes unfocusing in concentration. Her face tightened. "He's right. It's humming. The stone is preparing."
A low vibration rolled through the junction, deep and heavy, like something massive shifting its weight somewhere nearby.
Then the sound came. A distant grind. Stone sliding into place out of sight.
Dren's mouth tightened. "They're cutting corridors."
Ley's smile didn't brighten, but it stayed. "Then we stop standing in the ones they're cutting."
Jack's patience frayed. Ley's tone was too casual for a world that was actively rearranging itself around them.
He kept it contained anyway. "Move."
They moved, faster now.
The suspicion didn't leave, but it changed shape. Not fear of Ley. Uncertainty about him. Because he wasn't acting like an enemy.
He was acting like someone who had already seen the board and was choosing which pieces to show.
A service door appeared half-swallowed by shadow. The brass plate that once labeled it had been scratched until it was unreadable.
Ley stopped and raised two fingers.
The handle twitched, just slightly.
Jack's posture snapped tight. "Don't."
Ley paused, like he'd forgotten Jack existed. "Don't what."
"Don't touch it first."
Ley's eyes brightened with mild amusement. "Paranoid?"
"Trying to stay alive," Jack corrected.
Ley stepped half a pace to the side like he was granting Jack the honor. It was almost polite, and somehow that made it worse.
Jack crouched and studied the door. The frame was too clean, like someone had wiped it down. A thin line of dust had been disturbed along the hinge side. Recently used.
He didn't touch it. He nodded at Eva.
Eva lifted her hand, fingers hovering inches from the metal. She didn't push mana into the door. She listened to it.
Her brows drew in. "Trip ward," she murmured. "Small. It calls rather than explodes."
Jack's eyes stayed on the seam. "Can you mute it."
"For a moment."
"Do it," Jack said. "On my count."
Ley leaned against the wall like he was bored. The confidence didn't waver. Jack hated that it made him feel steadier.
Eva nodded once.
Jack exhaled, slow. "Now."
Eva's mana slid into the seam like a quiet blade, flattening the ward's pulse until it went dull. Jack moved instantly, shoulder into the door, opening it fast before the ward could reassert.
They slipped into the service passage.
The air changed. Cooler. Staler. Damp stone and old dust. Pipes ran along the ceiling, condensation dripping in a steady rhythm. The passage narrowed enough to force them into single file.
Ley went first anyway.
Jack followed, then Eva, then Cael, then Yla, then Dren in the rear because Jack had told him to, and because Dren would rather die than admit he couldn't.
They made it ten meters. Twenty.
Then a thin chirp of mana snapped behind them, brief and sharp, like a bird call made of light.
Jack's teeth clenched. "They heard that."
Eva's voice went clipped. "It shouldn't have propagated. I muted it."
Ley's head turned slightly. "It didn't propagate. Someone tagged it."
Jack felt the hair rise on his arms. "Meaning."
Ley's smile returned, smaller now. "Meaning someone was listening for exactly this kind of tampering."
Jack's jaw tightened.
The same thing kept happening. Ley said just enough to make the threat feel real, and not enough to tell them how he knew.
Jack kept moving because anger was loud and the stone was already loud enough.
The passage sloped down, then leveled. A maintenance hatch led to a vertical shaft.
Ley didn't slow. He grabbed the ladder rungs and dropped, boots landing below with a soft thud.
Jack went next, careful and quick. The shaft walls were damp and slick. Below, the air smelled faintly metallic, like old water.
He landed and turned, catching Cael's good forearm as Cael descended one-handed. Cael didn't thank him. He didn't need to.
Yla came down smoothly, jaw set. Eva followed, slower than she wanted to be, blinking too hard like her focus was starting to cost her. Dren came last, climbing like he was daring his body to protest.
They regrouped in a low maintenance hall with a grated floor. Dark water moved beneath the grate, slow and blind.
Ley pointed ahead. "Lower annex. Shelter's close."
Jack didn't like how sure he sounded.
They moved again.
Halfway down the hall, something shifted behind them.
Not footsteps. Not breath.
Stone.
A heavy grinding sound, like a slab being dragged across a gap.
Jack spun.
A warded stone plate was sliding into place, sealing the path they had used. It wasn't a normal door. It was thick and ancient, built for fires or floods. Or for keeping something from getting out.
Eva's eyes widened. "That isn't part of the normal routes."
Ley watched the plate settle with an expression that hovered between irritation and satisfaction. "Yeah," he said, like he'd just watched a prediction come true. "Bigger shift."
The slab locked with a deep, final click. The mana in the air steadied afterward, like the building had made a decision and was done negotiating.
Dren swore under his breath. "They're cutting corridors."
Jack's gaze snapped to Ley. "You expected this."
Ley's smile brightened, effortless. "Oh, did you forget already? I know everything."
Jack stared at him, and frustration rose hot behind his ribs.
It was the tone. That smooth little lilt, like the academy was a stage and everyone else was background noise. Jack could feel his knuckles itching. Not from fear. From the urge to shut Ley up just to make the hallway quieter.
Jack heard himself say it before he could stop. "You're like the guy I punched at that party."
For once, Ley looked genuinely surprised. He blinked, then tilted his head like he was inspecting the insult for quality.
"Wow," Ley said. "That's extremely rude."
Jack didn't soften. "It's accurate."
Ley's mouth opened, then closed, like he was deciding whether to be offended or amused. He chose amused, but it came out thinner.
"I am nothing like that guy," Ley said. "For one, I'm standing a respectful distance away from your fists."
Dren huffed a laugh he tried to swallow.
Jack's eyes narrowed. "You think I can't reach you there?"
Ley's smile eased into something calmer, not smug, just careful. "Woah. Calm down. No need to resort to meaningless violence."
"Keep paying attention, then," Jack said, voice low. "And stop performing."
Ley put a hand over his heart like Jack had wounded him. "Performing. Me. Never."
Jack didn't blink.
Ley held the pose for half a second, then let it drop with a quiet sigh, like he'd decided to behave out of generosity rather than fear.
"Fine," Ley said. "I'll be helpful."
He turned forward again and started walking, but he did it at a pace that made it obvious he expected the group to follow. He didn't look back to check. He didn't need to.
Two steps later, Ley drifted sideways until he was close enough to Eva to speak without raising his voice.
"Eva," Ley murmured, as if he was sharing a secret. "Is he always like that."
Eva didn't look at him. "Like what."
Ley flicked his eyes back toward Jack. "Like one bad sentence away from crashing out."
Jack's gaze snapped to them.
Ley didn't react. He just smiled wider, innocent. "See. That's exactly what I mean."
Eva's tone stayed flat. "He's trying to keep everyone alive."
Ley nodded, solemn. "Beautiful. Noble. Still terrifying."
Eva's fingers brushed the wall again, listening as they moved. "You're poking him."
"I'm evaluating him," Ley corrected softly. "There's a difference."
Eva's eyes shifted to Ley for the first time. "And what's your evaluation."
Ley considered, like he was genuinely thinking, not just teasing.
"I think he needs anger management courses," Ley said.
Eva stared at him for a beat. Then, very quietly, "You're going to get yourself hit."
Ley's smile turned pleased, like that was the point. "Possibly. Maybe I should stop hanging out with Kez. He is turning out to be a bad influence on me."
Eva's eyes narrowed. "You know Kez."
Ley's smile shifted a little. "I think it's more surprising if someone didn't know him. Especially after what he did this morning."
Eva exhaled once, like she'd been trying not to think about it.
Dren huffed from behind. "First day of class. What the hell was he thinking?"
Yla's gaze stayed forward, but her tone was flat with memory. "I think there is something wrong with his head."
Cael's voice stayed even. "Instructor Dan must be pissed. That guy is definitely getting expelled."
Eva's mouth tightened. "Getting in the academy is a once in a lifetime opportunity. To waste that opportunity like that. He will regret this."
Yla didn't slow. Her gaze stayed forward, steady.
"If he's still alive to regret it," she said.
Dren's head turned, sharp. "You think the Devil Sect got him."
Everyone went silent for a second, as if the corridor itself had asked them to imagine it.
Cael broke it first, tone flat, almost dismissive. "He always acted like consequences were for other people. If the Sect found him, that's karma."
Eva's eyes flicked to him. "Cael."
"What," Cael said, not looking back. "I'm not celebrating. I'm saying I'm not surprised."
Dren let out a breath through his nose. "Yeah. He was picking a fight with everyone. You don't do that and expect the world to be gentle."
Ley hummed softly from the front, amused in a way that didn't quite fit. "You're all very efficient at writing his obituary."
Yla didn't glance at him. "It's not an obituary. It's probability."
Eva's fingers brushed the wall again, steadier now. "We don't know anything."
The corridor pulsed again, a tightening in the stone that made the air feel narrower.
Then Jack's voice cut back, controlled. "Enough. Kez isn't our problem right now."
No one argued, but the thought followed anyway, like a shadow.