The academy's legal wheels turned with the slow certainty of a machine built to grind down ambiguity. Audits, interviews, secure interviews, protective custody for vendors who might be threatened. Captain Rhea moved through the motions with the same steady economy she used in the field: facts first, people second, contingencies always. Director Sethi signed forms and sent polite notices. Ishaan's crew faded into the margins and then reappeared with quiet updates. The smear had been slowed, but not erased.
Arjun felt the pressure like a tightening seam. The Astraeon Veil's halo had brightened with practice, but the corruption threads from earlier strikes still flared when he pushed too hard. He trained with the mentorship circle, practiced shared activations until the motions were muscle memory, and wrote reflective entries that thinned the fatigue thread a little. Each ledger line felt like a stitch in a garment that someone else might try to tear.
Then the alarm came.
It was not the dramatic siren of a public attack. It was a low, insistent chime from the archive wing: unauthorized access detected, a power draw on a restricted conduit, and a cascade of telemetry that suggested someone was trying to splice an anchor into the academy's internal network. The archive held cadet records, maintenance logs, and sealed reports from the outpost councils. If someone could pull a private corridor through those systems, they could erase evidence, rewrite manifests, and make a dozen small crimes look like accidents.
Captain Rhea gathered a small team and moved like a surgeon. "Contain and secure," she said. "No contractors. No anchors. We do this with sigils and constructs." Her voice left no room for argument. Arjun rode with the team, the halo at his throat a steady, private light.
The archive's doors were sealed but the telemetry showed a splice in progress at a service panel two levels below the stacks. They descended into a narrow service corridor that smelled of old paper and warm metal. The splice device was small and jury‑rigged, its scorched plate stamped with the same contractor insignia that had haunted the tram hub and the reclamation channel. Someone had tried to pull a draw through the academy's internal conduits.
Arjun knelt by the panel and felt the map's memory like a bruise: a quick pulse of unauthorized power, a hand that had been careful and practiced. The Phoenix‑root medic moved to his side and murmured, "Log it. Reflect. We treat the seam and the people." The Golem‑bond pressed its palms to the panel and the corridor's edges, stabilizing the immediate risk.
They found the operator in a maintenance alcove two corridors over: a cadet technician with a face like a boy who had been asked to do an adult thing. He had been paid in small sums and threatened with consequences for refusal. He denied institutional collusion and claimed he had been coerced by a courier who promised protection for his family. The story fit the pattern the audits had revealed, but the presence of a cadet in the splice made the problem intimate and ugly.
Director Sethi convened a closed session that night. He did not raise his voice. He cataloged facts and asked for recommendations. Captain Rhea recommended increased perimeter sweeps, a secure review of maintenance access, and a public notice that would reassure the outposts. Arjun recommended something else: a public demonstration that would show the academy's ability to protect its own records without relying on contractors. He did not say it aloud at first. He felt the idea like a pressure at his collarbone.
When he did speak, his voice was steady. "If someone can splice into our conduits, they can erase evidence," he said. "We need to show the public and our partners that we can secure archives and infrastructure with our own sigils. A controlled activation, recorded and transparent, will deter further attempts and restore trust." The room considered the suggestion like a map being unfolded.
Sethi's eyes were unreadable. "A public activation risks spectacle," he said. "It risks contractors claiming interference. It risks exposing cadets." The words were policy, but the implication was clear: a demonstration could solve one problem and create another.
Captain Rhea looked at Arjun and then at the assembled officers. "We do it with discipline," she said. "We control the variables. We document everything. We show the city we can hold our seams." Her tone made the decision.
Arjun volunteered to lead the activation.
It was not bravado. It was a calculation. A public, recorded stitch across the archive's service corridor would show containment and technique. It would also put his sigil in a place where contractors and cameras could see it. He knew the cost. He had practiced restraint for months. He had refused offers and set conditions on favors. He had accepted Ishaan's help with a promise that any findings would be shared with the academy. Now the academy asked him to make a stitch that would be visible to everyone.
They prepared with the care of people who knew how quickly a seam could tear. The Golem‑bond and Phoenix‑root medic coordinated keystone presses and medevac lanes. Technicians set cameras and telemetry to record every draw and every pressure. Captain Rhea stood at the perimeter with a tablet that would stream the activation to secure channels. Director Sethi arranged for field officers and outpost representatives to observe. Ishaan's liaison was present as an observer, his expression unreadable.
Arjun named the stones in the service corridor with the cadence he had practiced until the words felt like muscle. The Astraeon Veil unrolled a ribbon of starlight across the conduit, narrow and precise. The corridor hummed and swallowed the service corridor's noise. Cameras recorded the seam. Telemetry logged the draw. The Golem‑bond pressed the edges and the Phoenix‑root medic moved a test crate through the lane.
Halfway through the activation the splice device in the adjacent panel attempted a draw. Sparks lanced the corridor's edge. The stitch shivered. The mind‑screen flashed a warning: External resonance detected. Fatigue trace increasing. The gallery leaned forward. Ishaan's face tightened. Director Sethi's hand went to his chin.
Arjun widened the corridor by a careful fraction. The motion cost him a visible thread on the mind‑screen. The ribbon steadied enough for the crate to pass. The splice device shorted and died, its scorched plate falling silent. Telemetry recorded the attempted override and the failed draw. The cameras captured the corridor's seam and the way it had held.
The activation ended with a controlled, public success. The archive's records were secure. The splice device was cataloged as evidence. The academy's channels released a measured statement that emphasized containment and cooperation. The contractor houses issued statements that praised the academy's transparency and called for joint oversight. The public forums quieted for a day.
But the victory was not clean.
The footage had been recorded and distributed beyond the academy's secure channels. Contractors and private houses watched the activation and saw not only a corridor that held but a sigil that could be extended under pressure. The photograph of Arjun's mother's alley resurfaced in a contractor feed with a new caption: Cadet with unique stitch exposed. Who protects the academy when its cadets are visible? The smear had mutated into a question about leverage and spectacle.
Arjun felt the cost of exposure like a bruise. The halo on his mind‑screen showed a deep red thread that did not ease with reflection. He had done what the academy asked: he had secured the archive and shown containment. He had also made his sigil visible to a world that traded in favors and leverage. Ishaan approached him after the debrief with a look that was almost sympathy and almost calculation.
"You did what you had to," Ishaan said. "You held the seam and you made it public. That makes you useful and visible. Houses will come with offers and threats. Some will be polite. Some will not." He paused. "If you ever need a hand that doesn't ask for signatures, call me. But remember—visibility creates obligations."
Captain Rhea found Arjun later in the low room with maps and practice rigs. She did not lecture him. She cataloged the facts and set new training: tighter shared activations, redundancy in anchors, and a regimen to reduce corruption traces. "You did the right thing," she said. "You protected the archive. You protected people. But the world will push back. We will teach you how to stitch with less trace and how to hold a corridor without making it a target."
Arjun nodded. He had expected the cost to be political; he had not expected it to be personal and immediate. The photograph of his mother's alley had been repurposed again, and contractors who had once offered favors now watched with ledgered patience. He had accepted Ishaan's help and set conditions; he had exposed his sigil to the public in service of a greater good. The ledger of obligations had grown.
That night he sat on the academy roof and opened his mind‑screen. He wrote the reflective entries the Phoenix‑root medic required: about the splice device, the archive activation, the contractor feeds, and the photograph's new caption. He wrote about the way visibility could be a shield and a target at once. Each line eased the fatigue thread a little, but the bruise remained.
Below, the city breathed under a thin sheet of indigo. Tide‑light pulsed along the canal like a slow heart. The Astraeon Veil's halo moved in a rhythm he was beginning to understand. He folded the photograph into his pocket and, for the first time since Trial Day, let himself imagine a map that had been stitched in public and private hands alike—some to protect, some to profit. The climb would be faster now, and the choices would be louder.
He slept with the knowledge that exposure had a cost and that the next stitch might demand not only technique and ethics but a willingness to pay a price he had not yet counted.