Samuel returned on the fourth day looking like he hadn't slept properly since he left.
He found the four of them in the training yard, and for a moment he just stood at the gate, taking in the state of things, the faint bruising along Caleb's knuckles from drilling too hard, the sharper edge to Victor's stance that hadn't been there a week earlier.
"You absorbed another core," Samuel said. Not a question.
"Yeah."
"I told you not to without me here."
"I wasn't alone."
Samuel exhaled through his nose, a sound that carried more exhaustion than anger. "We'll discuss that later. Right now, we have bigger problems."
