The High Refectory at six in the morning was a cavernous grid of grey stone, long oak tables, and the heavy, humid roar of three hundred voices.
Steam rose in thick white plumes from the central broth cauldrons near the kitchens, mingling with the sharp, artificial smell of warm citrus oil that second-year line stewards used to wipe down the benches. A iron bell high in the vaulted rafters clanged twice, signaling the shift change for the eastern guard rosters. Bench legs scraped against slate; three fourth-year pyromancers argued loudly over an overdue tactical essay near the bread line; a tray of brass spoons crashed to the flagstones with a bright, echoing shudder.
Squad 7 walked through the heavy side doors with their sleeves rolled to their elbows and their hair still damp from the washroom.
They didn't freeze the room. No one gasped. The noise of three hundred tired cadets didn't drop or pause. A second-year squad near the water urns was too busy squabbling over a cracked slate to notice them at all.
It was only as they stepped into the middle aisle that the small ripples began.
"Look," a third-year line-leader muttered, nudging his benchmate with his elbow. "That's Drake."
"Thought he broke his arm in Sector Four."
"He's walking fine."
"He looks smaller," another student whispered behind a tin mug of chicory tea. "I thought the Annex squad was supposed to be bigger."
Squad 7 ignored the murmurs entirely—not out of performative stoicism, but because four months of clearing ditches, holding timber, and surviving Chawng's cadence had rewired what deserved their attention.
Xander didn't look at the chalked wait-time board above the serving hatches. He glanced at the angle of the steam rising from the second kettle, calculated the density of the queue by how fast the line-servers were moving their arms, and guided the squad straight to the short line on the far left before Drake even had to ask.
When they reached the tables, Drake didn't look for the higher-tier seating near the hearths. He walked straight to the long, empty bench along the northern stone wall, sliding into the corner so his back was pressed against solid masonry and his eyes commanded the entire floor.
Luna sat down beside him, picked up her wooden tray, and immediately reached out with two fingers to wedge a folded piece of parchment under the short leg of the water pitcher. It stopped rocking instantly.
Kara sat across from them with a bowl of cold, unbuttered barley porridge and a heel of dense rye bread. She didn't use a thermal pulse to warm the porridge. She didn't glance around to see who was watching her ergs. She simply picked up her spoon and began to eat with the fast, mechanical efficiency of someone who had learned in Sector Four that food was fuel and thermal energy was something you didn't waste on comfort.
James sat at the end of the bench. He didn't scan the room. He didn't look at the high balcony where the proctors sat. He just tore his bread in half, handed the larger portion to Xander, and ate in silence.
Thirty feet away, near the center hearth, Cade sat with the fourth-year Shield Wall rotation.
His eyes were bloodshot from twelve hours in the freezing rain, his brass gauntlet resting heavy on the dark oak table. Across from him, Lucas sat quietly, a small, unadorned ledger resting beside his untouched bowl of broth. Lucas wasn't eating; his lean, sharp face was perfectly still, his eyes tracking the room with cold, effortless precision.
Cade hadn't touched his tea in ten minutes. He kept staring across the refectory at the northern wall.
He watched Kara swallow a spoonful of cold porridge. He watched her wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. He watched her reach for a mug of lukewarm water. There was no posture in her shoulders. No defensive posture, no territorial tension, no pride.
"She's different," Cade muttered. His voice was thick with exhaustion and a deep, churning irritation he couldn't shape into words.
Lucas didn't turn his head immediately. He dipped his quill into a small travel inkwell, marked a neat line across his ledger, and then glanced sideways toward the northern wall.
"Different how?" Lucas asked smoothly.
"She didn't even care," Cade said, his knuckles tightening against his gauntlet until the brass groaned. "Last night at the gatehouse. She stood right inside my thermal field. Thirty ergs. I was ready to lock up the whole archway if she flexed."
"And?"
"She talked about a ditch," Cade spat, leaning in, his voice low and bitter. "She looked at me like I was a fence post holding up a line. She didn't flare her core. She didn't bite. She just... walked away."
Lucas didn't offer a platitude. He didn't tell Cade that Kara was broken, nor did he tell him she was dangerous.
Instead, Lucas leaned back slightly, his sharp eyes lingering on Squad 7's table. He watched how Drake shifted his weight to keep the pressure off his shoulder without making a show of it. He watched how Xander passed the salt cellar to Luna before she even asked for it. He watched five people operating in a crowded, noisy room with zero excess motion, zero posturing, and absolute, quiet cohesion.
"She didn't posture," Lucas said softly, more to himself than to Cade.
"She's running empty," Cade insisted, though there was a tremor of uncertainty under his words. "The Annex drained them. They came back with nothing."
Lucas turned a page in his ledger, his pen hovering over the fresh parchment.
"Or," Lucas said, his tone entirely dry, "they came back with something that doesn't show up on a brass gauge."