Kai didn't have work that morning, so when Neo and Matt stirred, he rose with them. The three of us walked the streets together, the sound of our boots striking rhythm against the cobbles. Nynxreach's spires rose ahead, their steel frames glinting faintly under the pale morning light.
Matt didn't have a shift either, though technically he was on call. His communicator was always at his side, buzzing softly like a tether to duty. He never seemed bothered by it, though. Mattethis carried that calm steadiness no matter where he went, as though nothing could surprise him anymore.
Neil's lecture was listed on the board today: Magic Theory. The words themselves carried a weight that pulled us forward.
---
The study hall was cavernous, lined wall to wall with shelves of old tomes and brittle scrolls. The smell of parchment and ink clung thick, layered over with the faint bite of chalk. Students settled quickly, their voices dropping as Neil strode in.
We slid into seats near the back. Neo, as always, pressed close beside me, a shadow that refused to leave. He'd been like that ever since Matt and I had crawled out of the Lawless City—hovering, watchful, protective. Sometimes it felt like he thought if he looked away for too long, I'd vanish.
Matt sat a little apart, impassive as ever. His arms rested loosely on the desk, but his eyes missed nothing. He was always observing, even when he looked like he wasn't.
Neil was late, as usual, but when he came in, he did so with his usual fire. His hair was an uncombed mess, his shirt half untucked, his eyes bright like he'd just sprinted from a dream and hadn't slowed since.
"Today's lesson," he said, clapping his hands once for emphasis, "is about magic! And yes, I'm adding the exclamation mark because it came to me in a dream."
Some students laughed. Others leaned forward.
Neil pooled resonance into his hand, the glow faint but steady. Neo and Matt tracked it instantly—the sharp focus in their eyes proof enough that they saw the subtleties I didn't. My perception of resonance was fractured, muffled, never as clear as theirs.
Neil thrust his palm outward, and the gathered energy rippled into a compressed wave of air. Papers fluttered, a few gasps slipped from the front row. Nothing dramatic. A push, simple but undeniable.
"Resonance," Neil continued, pacing with that manic energy, "isn't just raw power. It's theory. Our reality can be bent, shaped, if resonance is applied with intent. We see glimpses in Boons—teleportation, instantaneous movement, impossible feats that physics alone cannot account for. That is magic. Resonance applied consciously. Not instinct. Not luck. Control."
His words sped up, feverish. "The Old Realm may already hold structures for this. Rules. Codified techniques. If we can learn them, magic could be mapped and taught like mathematics. That's what I dream of: resonance shaped as deliberately as writing words onto paper."
His face flushed with excitement, his voice reverent. Neil was what people called Sovereign-positive. He welcomed Sovereign's strange mechanics, even the unsettling ones—the empties, the updates, the glitches that left others afraid. To him, they were opportunities, not threats.
I stayed quiet. I carried knowledge of Sovereign that would make Neil's dreams look small. If I spoke, if I offered even a fraction of what I knew, I could derail his study, set him chasing truths he wasn't ready for. But it wasn't my place. His work was his own.
DualMind stayed silent too. It rarely spoke these days unless prompted. That silence felt like a taboo Sovereign had granted me, a mercy or maybe pity. Either way, I preferred it.
The lecture wound down with Neil scribbling conjectures across the board, half-formed equations that didn't fit but looked impressive enough to keep his audience rapt.
---
On the walk home, the three of us drifted into conversation.
Mattethis yawned, stretching his arms behind his head. "Neil's chasing theories he can't prove. But he's entertaining."
Neo shook his head, a small smile tugging his lips. "Basic manipulation or not, he's onto something. If resonance can be applied consciously, like he says, then everything we know changes." He glanced at me, his eyes narrowing. "You didn't react much."
I smirked faintly. "Because I've seen stranger things. Stranger than air tricks. Stranger than Neil could imagine."
Matt gave a short laugh, while Neo's gaze lingered a heartbeat too long before slipping away. He didn't press further. He knew when I was closing a door.
By the time we reached the apartment, the sun had dipped low, painting the windows gold. We settled into our routines. I stayed quiet, as I often did. They didn't mind. They'd grown used to my silences.
---
The rest of the week blurred.
Monday was survival lessons: how to build fire in damp conditions, how to track prey through mud, how to resist fatal cold. I tuned most of it out. None of it mattered. Wilderness survival wasn't survival. It was a practice game with soft edges. Survival was the pit, choking on smoke and hunger, fighting to keep your soul intact. Survival was the Lawless City, where every night was a gamble against death. The classroom couldn't teach that.
Tuesday, though—Tuesday was different.
A name had been pulling at me all week, tugging like a thread I couldn't ignore: Avren.
He wasn't loud or flashy. He didn't demand attention. But there was weight in him, something measured and deliberate that stood out in a precinct full of noise.
Curiosity finally tipped into action.
---
The GRARC precinct was alive with its own order. The walls hummed faintly with resonance detectors, their lights pulsing steady. Officers passed through the halls in a stream of uniforms and clipped conversations, boots striking sharp against stone. The air smelled of paper, ink, and faintly of gun oil. Above it all hung the GRARC emblem: a globe split by a jagged rift, as sharp and unyielding as the work it represented.
I moved through the hall until I reached my assigned desk.
Avren was already there. His uniform was crisp, pressed with the kind of care that spoke of discipline. His head was bent over a stack of reports, pen scratching steady across the page. Every line he wrote was measured, every movement precise, like he carved order into the chaos one word at a time.
I slid into the chair beside him, the legs scraping lightly against the floor. My posture slouched by comparison, loose where his was rigid.
For a moment, I simply studied him. The calm set of his jaw. The crease in his brow from focus. The way he didn't flinch at the noise of the room, didn't falter in his writing.
Flicker buzzed faintly in the back of my skull, her voice like a glinting blade. 'He's too neat. Let's see what spills out if you cut the lines.'
I leaned back in my chair, letting the silence stretch between us. My eyes drifted over the files stacked on his side of the desk, each stamped with the GRARC seal. Rift disturbances. Civilian statements. Missing persons reports. Stories he was already threading into something coherent.
For the first time, I allowed myself to really look at Avren—not just as another uniform, not just as another cog in GRARC's machine, but as someone worth learning about.
And as the precinct buzzed around us, I settled in, ready to let the silence break when it wanted to.
Because sooner or later, Avren would speak. And when he did, I'd finally have the first thread.