Morning didn't care what happened the night before.
It arrived anyway.
The city woke with the same tired heartbeat it always had—vendors calling too early, children racing too fast for breakfast, workers muttering prayers to anyone who still bothered to listen. Smoke drifted up from cheap pans, laundry lines sagged, and the sound of life resumed without waiting for permission.
The slums had learned a long time ago that survival wasn't dramatic.
It was repetitive.
Aiden woke to the smell of something that called itself soup purely for morale.
Liora was already awake, hair tied back, sleeves rolled, moving like someone who believed doing something was better than doing nothing. She helped an elderly woman sweep a step that didn't need sweeping yet and a boy fix a wooden toy that had stopped being a toy years ago.
They didn't ask who Aiden really was.
They didn't care what he could do.
He had helped.
He smiled kindly.
That was currency here.
He sat on a broken step for a moment and simply watched the neighborhood.
A cat stretched on a warm stone.
Someone cursed cheerfully about bread.
Two teenagers argued about absolutely nothing with the intensity of duelists.
Life.
He hadn't ruined this place.
He hadn't saved it either.
He simply existed here now.
That felt strangely heavier than either extreme.
Senior—Ardent—was old enough to let the morning stand on its own. He leaned on his cane, not because he needed to, but because mortals relaxed around things that looked ordinary.
He sipped tea.
Of course he had tea.
He always had tea.
"You're thinking too loudly," he said lazily.
"I didn't say anything," Aiden muttered.
"You never do," Ardent replied. "You worry inwardly. It's polite. Extremely inconvenient, but polite."
Seris arrived sometime around breakfast.
Not marching.
Not interrogating.
Just walking.
Tired eyes.
Steady hands.
Presence.
She had been up half the night filing reports no one would ever truly read. Writing carefully chosen words that explained nothing while saying just enough to keep people alive.
She didn't join them immediately.
She stood across the street first.
Watching the neighborhood.
Counting the people still standing instead of the ones who had fallen.
Measuring damage not in blood, but in fear.
Then she nodded to herself.
Only then did she approach.
"Morning," she said.
Liora handed her a cup of something hot before she could ask.
"Sit," the woman added firmly.
Seris sat.
Nobody made speeches.
Nobody dissected trauma.
They just… shared quiet.
The city would take that over heroics any day.
Meanwhile — Far Above the Ground
The office was clean.
That alone was threatening.
No dust.
No clutter.
No personal warmth.
Just policy.
A table of polished stone, a ceiling that looked expensive simply so people understood where they stood, and six men and women who did not wear armor because they preferred responsibility to bleed for other people.
Reports lay stacked in disciplined rows.
Runic crystals hummed quietly.
A map of the district pulsed faintly.
The man at the head of the table did not raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"So," he said calmly, "our highly trained capture unit was incapacitated without violence."
"Yes, sir," someone answered.
"By… psychological collapse born of their own cognitive frameworks experiencing reflective overload."
"Yes, sir."
"In other words," he continued mildly, "they were undone by the weight of their beliefs."
Silence.
He leaned back.
"That is extremely troubling," he said gently. "Because it means someone understands us."
Not feared them.
Not hated them.
Not rebelled against them.
Understood them.
He tapped the report with two fingers.
"And they chose not to kill our men.
Not to cripple them.
Not to humiliate them."
His expression did not soften.
"That level of restraint is… strategic."
A woman across the table cleared her throat.
"There's more."
There always was.
She placed a new folder down carefully.
"Unregistered wish phenomena. Confirmed witness accounts. Emotional distortion events. Fae involvement. Possibly… more."
The room didn't panic.
They didn't allow themselves to.
But something colder entered the air.
Another official exhaled slowly.
"So we are no longer dealing with rumor."
"No," the woman replied. "We're dealing with leverage that does not belong to us."
That sentence sat between them like a predator.
The head official nodded.
"Then we classify.
We sanitize.
We regain control of the narrative.
And we locate the individuals involved."
He folded his hands.
"We do not need ownership immediately."
A brief pause.
"We only need inevitability."
Someone hesitated.
"Sir… one of the names associated with the event…"
He looked up.
"…Ardent Thornewyn."
The room didn't move.
Then someone laughed very quietly.
Not because it was funny.
Because disbelief needed somewhere to go.
The leader shut his eyes briefly.
"…of course."
Silence.
Then composure returned.
"Then we proceed carefully."
A thoughtful pause.
"Very carefully."
The city above smiled and functioned.
The city below breathed and endured.
Somewhere between them,
lines were slowly being drawn by hands that pretended they were not shaping anything at all.
Back in the Slums
A child tripped.
Aiden caught him.
The kid laughed and ran off again.
Seris watched that and let out an exhale that wasn't quite relief but wasn't despair either.
Liora leaned against a wall, eyes softer than last night.
Ardent smiled faintly.
"Enjoy it," he murmured.
"The quiet?" Aiden asked.
"No," Ardent said.
"The normal."
Because storms never feel as frightening as the memory of peace before them.
The universe did not argue.
It simply waited.
And somewhere in upper offices and unseen heavens,
plans were being drawn,
files created,
and decisions prepared.
Not with claws.
Not with blades.
With pens.
The most dangerous weapons civilized people ever invented.
For now though?
Breakfast.
Soft laughter.
Slow breathing.
A day that did not demand heroics.
That mattered.
More than anything.