The days before Barracuda showed up were too quiet. It wasn't a normal quiet. It was the heavy, watchful silence that made even the Sentinels on patrol glance over their shoulders. In just two days, the whole mood of Arachis Academy had shifted. The students weren't just calm—they were orderly in a way that felt programmed. Winston and the other instructors saw it, wrote it off as shock after the recent attacks, but the feeling was wrong. It was too perfect.
The cafeteria was the clearest example. The place was usually a loud, messy battleground of cliques and challenges. Now, it ran like a machine. Students filed in, got their food, ate, and left with a uniform, subdued efficiency. When Drake and Alexis walked in, the difference hit them immediately. Only a handful of kids still laughed too loud or shoved each other. The rest moved with a quiet purpose that was deeply unsettling. Xian waved at them from a table, a spot of normalcy in the weirdness.
The guys already at the table were another surprise. Ryan and Jackson were both there, but not a single one of their usual followers was in sight. Alexis clocked it but didn't comment, just sat down. Ryan and Jackson were ignoring each other, but they weren't fighting. It was like a temporary truce had been called by some unseen threat.Both of them were staring straight at Drake. Alexis might as well have been furniture."Got a problem?" Drake finally asked, his voice flat.
"Fight me," Ryan said instantly, his eyes lighting up. Xian drove her heel down on his foot under the table without looking up. Ryan hissed but didn't push it.Drake filed that away—Ryan listening to Xian. That was new.
"Everyone's acting weird today," Ryan said, going back to his soup like nothing happened.
"I noticed," Alexis said, pushing his glasses up. "It's not natural. They seem too well behaved."
"Even the lunch lady," Ryan agreed, rubbing his foot. "Same smile for everyone. Same exact ladle movement. Creepy."
"They know," Drake said, keeping his voice low. "If we can see it, you know the security room has it on ten different screens. They're handling it."
Alexis stood up to go get food. "Get me a bowl with extra carrots," Drake told him. Alexis gave a short nod.
A few hours later, they were in a revision lecture. The teacher was going over the political structure of the Grand Alliance. Drake usually tuned this out, but today he was watching the room. Nearly every student was leaning forward, eyes glued to the instructor with the same blank focus. They nodded at the same times. They wrote in their tablets in unison. Only Drake, Alexis, Ryan, Jackson, and maybe two others in the back weren't caught in the spell. Even the teacher looked uncomfortable, his eyes darting over the eerily attentive faces, but he kept talking until the bell finally rang.
Using his sharpened senses, Alexis let his focus drift over the classroom. It wasn't just that the students were quiet. Their energy—the subtle pulse of their Aether—wasn't just muted. It was subtly tilted, like iron filings drawn to a magnet. And the magnet was Connor Frey, sitting calmly near the front. They were themselves, but also not. Like copies.Alexis stayed tense, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.
Then, a deep, metallic groan echoed across the academy grounds—the main gates.Heads snapped up. Students near windows crowded the glass. Those in the hallways stopped to look. A long, sleek limousine, black and polished to a mirror shine, rolled through the gates and into the central yard. It didn't stop at the visitor's lot. It glided right up to the base of the administration building itself.
The rear door opened. A man stepped out. He wore a crisp, tailored uniform of white and sea-blue, trimmed with gold. Tattoos in a straight, geometric pattern ran up his forearms from under his short sleeves. But no one cared about the tattoos.Over his heart, clear as day, was the crest of Royal House Poseidon—a silver trident wreathed in storm waves.
"Interesting scent," Barracuda said quietly to himself, his nostrils flaring slightly as he took in the air of the academy. He could feel hundreds of eyes on him. It just made the corner of his mouth twitch. 'Quite a welcome.'
"This way, sir," Garlack's voice cut through the quiet. The Security Captain stood at attention by the doors, his face unreadable.
As Barracuda followed Garlack inside, the yard broke into a wave of hushed talk.
"Who is that?""That's the Poseidon sigil.""Feel that? Just standing there... he feels heavy."
From a second-floor window, Connor and Elara watched the scene below. Their faces showed none of the curiosity or awe of the other students. They were still, like two statues.'He's a complication,' Elara's thought brushed against Connor's mind, smooth and cold.'He's not the priority,'Connor thought back.'Then what is?''The surveillance. The ones watching us. We need to swat those flies before we can proceed.'A faint, cruel light flickered in Elara's eyes—a look that didn't belong to the girl whose face she wore. 'Soon.'