The Academy didn't react the way Frankie expected.
There were no emergency bells. No priest standing on a balcony with thunder in his voice. No sudden convocation in the courtyard where instructors pointed toward the walls and told everyone to pray harder.
Instead, the Academy became… attentive.
Not loudly.
Quietly.
Like a predator realizing something has changed in the grass.
Frankie noticed it the morning after the library, before she even reached her first lesson.
Instructors lingered too long in corridors, not speaking to anyone, just standing with hands folded as students filed past. Assistants attended lectures they never usually sat in. The kind of men and women who normally lived behind desks and ledgers now perched at the back of classrooms, eyes sharp, listening to the questions instead of the answers.
Even the air in Grecko Academy felt different. Not colder. Not warmer. Just… heavier. Like the marble itself had absorbed too many prayers and was now holding its breath.
Frankie kept her head down and walked like she belonged.
Because she did.
She was a scholarship student. Ungifted. Officially harmless. The sort of person the Academy forgot the moment she stepped out of view.
That was the only reason she was still alive.
She passed the central courtyard where gifted students clustered in bright knots of colour and confidence. A boy blessed by Hermes ran along the low wall without ever touching the ground, boots hovering a finger's width above stone. A girl with Athena's sigil traced a faint shimmer of protection across her forearm, laughing as friends dared her to widen it.
They looked like war was a performance.
Frankie looked away.
Along the outer colonnade, new notices had been pinned to boards with neat temple wax.
ARCHIVE ACCESS: TEMPORARY RESTRICTIONS.
RESEARCH HOURS: REVISED.
NON-ESSENTIAL REQUESTS: SUBJECT TO DELAY.
No explanation.
None was needed. The message wasn't meant to inform.
It was meant to remind.
You were allowed to learn. You were not allowed to dig.
Frankie's stomach tightened as she walked past. She thought of the cut pages in the demon book. The resewn stitching. The handwriting in the margins that hadn't been meant for student eyes.
Stop calling it myth.
She swallowed the memory down and kept moving.
By the time she reached the auxiliary wing, rumours had already started.
Not about demons.
About angels.
She heard fragments as she passed students leaning close together in the hall.
"…they lost a full patrol."
"…not scavengers. Not this time."
"…my cousin says the sky went white for a second, like lightning but wrong."
"…they're burning through wards. Slowly. Testing."
Frankie didn't stop, but her attention sharpened.
Testing.
That word mattered.
Scavengers didn't test. They swarmed. They fed. They died.
Angels learned.
That was what she'd seen outside the walls. Not just strength, but intent. Units moving as if they were searching for something, not hunting blindly.
She turned into the auxiliary staging corridor and found the notice board already surrounded.
Marco was there, leaning on his cane, head tilted as he read. His injured leg was wrapped in a brace that made him walk stiffly, but the way he held himself was pure stubbornness. He belonged to the kind of people who believed pain was something you endured quietly until the world stopped demanding it.
Luca stood beside him, arms folded, gaze steady and unreadable.
Frankie approached without announcing herself.
"What happened?" she asked.
Luca didn't look at her right away. His eyes stayed on the paper.
"They're moving schedules up."
Marco gave a humourless snort. "They don't do that unless something went wrong."
Frankie leaned closer and scanned the posted report.
It wasn't a full report. Just a summary—clean, clipped, sterile.
INCIDENT REPORT — OUTER PERIMETER
Engagement deviated from projected doctrine.
Gifted casualties higher than anticipated.
Auxiliary losses pending confirmation.
Cause under review.
No details. No route markings. No names.
Just absence and careful language.
"Any survivors?" Frankie asked.
Marco shook his head slowly. "Not that they're saying."
Luca's voice dropped lower. "Which usually means there were. And they don't want questions yet."
Frankie felt something settle in her chest.
Not dominion.
Not the system.
Recognition.
This wasn't a single failure.
It was a pattern the Academy didn't want to name.
They were calling it deviation because they couldn't call it adaptation without admitting doctrine was outdated.
A bell sounded down the hall — not a temple bell, but the auxiliary horn. The one used for briefings and deployments.
Students began filing into the briefing chamber. Frankie followed Luca and Marco inside.
The room smelled of ink, sweat, and old stone. Maps were pinned across the far wall. Officers stood with tablets in hand and the kind of faces that had learned to stop apologizing for death.
Frankie took a seat near the back, posture loose, eyes lowered.
Invisible.
That was the goal.
The officer in charge began without ceremony.
"Angel activity has increased along the eastern corridors."
Murmurs rippled through the room.
He raised a hand and continued.
"Not confirmed sightings. Patterns. Disruptions. Missing patrols. Unusual silence in scavenger zones."
Unusual silence.
Frankie's fingers curled slightly against her knee.
Silence was never a good sign outside the walls. Silence meant something had eaten everything else.
The officer tapped the board with a pointer.
"Doctrine classification remains escalated scavenger interference."
Frankie almost laughed.
Doctrine still couldn't say the word angel without immediately forcing it into a shape the Academy understood.
If angels were adapting, doctrine became useless.
So doctrine insisted angels weren't adapting.
Assignments were issued next.
Units selected.
Names spoken.
Frankie listened without moving, but her attention sharpened the moment she heard one designation.
"Clearance Unit Theta-Seven."
Marco straightened.
"Report at dawn," the officer continued. "Standard sweep. Blessed support contingent to follow once threat confirmed."
Standard sweep.
Bait, wrapped in procedure.
Frankie heard Luca's name called.
Then Marco's.
She waited for hers.
It never came.
Her face didn't change. Her breathing stayed even. She didn't let surprise show.
But inside her chest, the system seemed to press faintly—like it was listening to a rhythm she hadn't heard yet.
The briefing ended. Students filed out quickly, eager to pretend danger was somewhere else.
Marco shifted his cane and turned to Frankie with forced lightness.
"Looks like I'm back where I started," he said. "Lucky me."
"You shouldn't be out there," Frankie replied quietly.
Marco's mouth twitched. "Neither should half the Academy. That's kind of their business model."
Luca's gaze stayed on Frankie.
"You weren't assigned," he said.
"No."
Marco frowned. "That's strange. You've been doing the support drills all week."
Frankie already knew why.
She just hadn't wanted to see it in writing.
She got her answer an hour later.
A sealed notice sat in her auxiliary locker, stamped with Academy insignia and marked CONFIDENTIAL — ROLE ADJUSTMENT.
She read it once.
Then again, slower.
Francesca Rinaldi
Reassigned from Clearance Rotation to Operational Support (Attached)
Effective immediately
Further instructions pending
Attached.
Not embedded.
Not command.
Support.
Close enough to observe. Close enough to assist. Close enough to be used.
And far enough that when bodies came back broken, her name wouldn't be written beside them.
Frankie folded the notice carefully and slid it into her satchel.
That was when the wrongness hit.
Not fear. Not dread.
Pattern misalignment.
Theta-Seven was being sent first.
Blessed support would follow after confirmation.
Which meant the clearance unit would face whatever was out there alone, long enough for the threat to reveal itself.
Long enough to kill.
Frankie left the Academy grounds as the afternoon light warmed the marble.
Outside, the city looked normal. Vendors shouted over prices. Children ran between stalls. Priests lectured crowds about gratitude and duty. Couriers leapt between rooftops as if the world belonged to them.
But the rumours had teeth now.
Frankie caught them in passing conversations at fountains and market corners.
"…too many missing."
"…they say angels are moving closer."
"…my uncle swears he saw light above the ruins. Not lightning. Something else."
"…the priests won't say it, but the temples are nervous."
She walked to the outer gate just before sunset.
There, she watched Theta-Seven assemble.
Marco adjusted his grip on his spear, face calm. Luca checked straps and rations, gaze sharp. Others joked softly, pretending routine could protect them.
Blessed units watched from a distance, too confident, too comfortable. They would be called if the threat was "confirmed."
Frankie stared at them and felt her jaw tighten.
They wouldn't be called until it was too late.
That was the point.
She turned away before anyone could read her expression.
If she followed openly, she would be seen.
If she was seen, questions would follow.
If questions followed, everything ended.
By the time dawn came, Frankie had already decided what she would do.
When Theta-Seven marched out, Francesca Rinaldi did not follow.
Instead, somewhere beyond the walls, a girl changed her clothes.
Changed her pace.
And prepared to walk into a trap the Academy had packaged as doctrine.
Because whatever was waiting out there wasn't hunting scavengers anymore.
It was hunting answers.
And Frankie was becoming one.