Class ended the way it always ended—like a wave pulling back.
Miss Nanda's final words cut clean through the room, the last instruction delivered with the same steady sharpness she used for everything. Chairs shifted. Paper rustled. Trainees stood and stretched as if the hour had been a rope around their ribs and they were finally allowed to breathe again.
I stayed seated for a moment longer than most.
My body felt heavy. Not just tired—weighted. Like the Guild Master's presence had left an imprint in my bones and I hadn't shaken it loose yet. My legs still ached when I moved them, and every time I thought of aura my stomach tightened as if my mind was bracing for another invisible hand to close around my throat.
Beside me, Mya gathered her things carefully. She always did. Quiet hands. Quiet movements. Like she didn't want to take up too much space even when she was smiling.
She looked happy most of the time—bright eyes, soft laugh, a warmth that made the room feel less harsh—but she was shy in the way someone could be shy while still trying. Like she'd decided being kind was worth the risk of being noticed.
"You… okay?" she whispered again, still watching me like she could tell something in me wasn't sitting right.
I swallowed.
The honest answer was still too big.
So I gave the smaller one.
"Yeah," I said. "Just tired."
Mya nodded slowly, like she didn't believe me but wouldn't force the truth out of my mouth. "Don't forget to eat," she said, and there was a gentle firmness to it that reminded me painfully of someone else.
Myrina had used that same tone when she caught me skipping meals to save coins.
I forced my face not to change.
"I won't," I lied.
Mya's lips twitched, not quite a smile, and she stood. I followed a second later, pushing off my chair carefully. My legs protested immediately.
Rest, Sir Erdallion had said last night.
I'd tried.
Sleep came like a rock, but waking had been a sprint into embarrassment, and now my body was paying interest.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and turned toward the door, already imagining the stairs up to the guest room, the bed, the quiet. If I could just get there, maybe my mind would stop chewing.
That thought lasted three steps.
My shoulder took an impact—hard enough to jolt my spine.
I staggered half a step, breath snapping in.
Someone's shoulder had slammed into mine as they passed.
It wasn't an accident.
I didn't have to look to know.
Lyan walked by without stopping, face angled forward like I was invisible. But his elbow lingered just a fraction too long, and the set of his jaw screamed intention.
The Mirror Maze incident hadn't ended in that room.
It had just paused.
My body reacted before my mind did. For an instant, my muscles went tight—like they remembered weight, remembered pressure, remembered being crushed into the floor.
I wanted to keep walking.
I did keep walking.
But the hit rattled me anyway, a small crack in whatever control I'd been trying to build all morning.
I clenched my teeth and focused on the door. Don't engage. Don't flare. Don't turn a shoulder check into a fight.
As Lyan passed, I saw another movement near the door.
Arlo—who'd been sitting close to the exit—rose from his chair. He didn't speak. He didn't call Lyan out. But his eyes flicked once, fast and sharp, to the exact spot where Lyan had hit me.
He noticed.
Then he walked past me without a word, heading deeper into the room.
Toward Mya.
I slowed without meaning to.
Arlo stopped beside Mya like he'd planned it from the beginning. He said something low, and Mya tilted her head, listening. Arlo's hands moved as he talked—quick gestures, blunt and direct, the way his words always were.
Mya's expression shifted a little. Not unhappy. Not yet. Just uncertain.
Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a small pouch—cloth, tied at the top.
Cookies.
She held it out to Arlo with both hands like it mattered.
Arlo took it.
He said something else—his face unreadable in the way only someone honest could be, like he didn't understand why people bothered hiding what they meant.
Mya laughed softly, cheeks pink, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
And my chest tightened so suddenly it startled me.
It wasn't pain exactly.
It was… pressure.
A squeeze from the inside.
I stared at them for half a second too long, and my mind tried to name the feeling and failed.
Jealousy? No. That didn't fit. Not cleanly.
I was ten.
I didn't want Mya. Not like that.
But…
She'd been kind. Safe. Steady in a room full of sharp edges.
After Myrina vanished, the world felt like it had holes in it—holes that could open under your feet without warning. Mya had become one of the few people who made those holes feel smaller just by being there.
Seeing her hand something precious to someone else made something in me whisper:
What if you lose her too?
The thought was so fast it barely formed into words.
I swallowed hard and forced my gaze away.
Fatigue, I told myself. It's just fatigue.
My legs hurt. My head was full. My heart was still bruised.
That was all it was.
I turned and walked out before my face could betray how much that small scene had shaken me.
***
The guest room was quiet when I reached it.
Too quiet.
It didn't smell like home. It didn't creak like home. It didn't hold Myrina's absence in every corner like home did.
It was clean and empty and meant for someone who belonged here.
I sat on the bed and stared at my hands.
My knuckles were still faintly sore from earlier days of work, but it wasn't the same kind of soreness. This was deeper. The ache in my legs pulsed with each heartbeat. My lungs still felt like they remembered being pinned.
I tried to sleep.
I really did.
I lay back, closed my eyes, and waited for darkness to swallow me again the way it had last night.
Instead, my mind stayed awake and sharp and cruel.
Ash's blade wrapped in thin fire.
Sir Erdallion's voice: Aura is the manifestation of will.
The warning: Insane. Unstable. Dangerous. Some die.
Myrina.
Finn's empty seat.
And then, stupidly—annoyingly—Mya's hands offering a cookie pouch to Arlo.
The image kept flashing behind my eyelids like something I couldn't blink away.
Each time it appeared, my chest tightened again.
I turned on my side. Then the other. Then back.
No sleep.
I sat up, exhaled through my nose, and made a decision that felt less like choice and more like surrender.
If I couldn't sleep, I'd find Nerissa.
Sir Erdallion had said to speak to her if I couldn't rest.
So I'd do that.
I left the room and headed downstairs, moving slower this time. My legs complained with every step, like the stairs were an insult.
The guild's first floor was loud, as always. Adventurers crowded the counters. Receptionists spoke briskly. Papers passed back and forth like blades.
I scanned the room.
No Nerissa.
No Barrek. No Ruth. No Joren. No familiar wall of laughter to hide behind.
Vira was there, busy at a counter, eyes darting between an adventurer's outstretched hand and a ledger like she was fighting the world with numbers.
Two other receptionists worked beside her, both occupied with impatient voices and rustling contracts.
I waited a moment, hoping Nerissa would appear from the back room.
She didn't.
I swallowed and looked again.
There were five counters in total.
Four were active.
One… wasn't.
It wasn't empty, exactly.
It was avoided.
People shifted away from it as if the air around it had teeth. Adventurers who looked bold and loud at the other counters suddenly found reasons to check their bags or "remember something" when they drifted too close to that one.
Even from here, I could see why.
A woman sat behind it, head down, writing.
Short black hair.
Thin glasses.
Her posture was straight and composed, like the chair was lucky to support her. She moved with the calm efficiency of someone who treated paperwork like a battlefield and intended to win.
She looked around Nerissa's age, but… different.
Nerissa had warmth even when she was stern.
This woman looked like warmth was an unnecessary expense.
She didn't glance up at anyone.
People didn't bother her.
They just… avoided her.
I didn't want to go there.
But I also didn't have another choice.
So I walked up to the counter.
Each step felt like stepping closer to an animal that didn't like being disturbed.
When I reached it, she finally looked up.
Her eyes landed on me like a stamp hitting paper.
"What do you need, kid," she said flatly.
Not a greeting.
Not an introduction.
A transaction.
Her tone wasn't loud, but it carried a sharp edge. Like she expected me to waste her time and had already decided she didn't like me for it.
I swallowed, trying to keep my voice steady.
"I'm looking for Nerissa," I said.
Her pen paused.
For half a second, I thought she might ignore me.
Then she sighed—small, impatient—and spoke as if reciting something she'd already been forced to say too many times.
"She's not here."
My stomach tightened. "Where is she?"
The woman's eyes narrowed just slightly, like the question irritated her.
"With the Guild Master," she said.
My heart jumped. "Sir Erdallion?"
"Yes," she replied, already returning her attention to the paper as if the conversation was over.
"With him… where?" I pressed, and my voice came out a little too fast.
Her pen scratched again. "The capital."
The word hit me strange.
The capital meant Avalonia—meant distance, power, things above my reach.
I stared at her. "Why?"
She didn't look up this time.
"Guild business," she said, the words clipped. "Above your clearance."
The phrase stung.
Above my clearance.
Like I was a locked door and my hands were too small to reach the key.
I swallowed, fighting the urge to ask more. I wanted to know if this had anything to do with training. With Myrina. With Floor 43. With anything that mattered.
But the woman's expression made it clear she'd rather fight a monster than babysit a trainee's questions.
"Is there… something I'm supposed to do?" I asked carefully.
Her pen paused again.
This time she looked up, and her eyes felt like they could cut.
"You rest," she said, as if speaking to someone slow. "You don't take errands. You stay where you can be found."
She glanced at me over the rim of her glasses. "That's what was left for you."
Left for me.
Instructions.
So she wasn't just rude for fun.
She was… tasked.
She went back to writing like that ended everything.
I hesitated, then asked anyway, "Are they going to Avalonia?"
Her eyes flicked up again—annoyance sharpening.
"I just told you," she said, voice flatter, colder. "Capital."
I nodded quickly, heat rushing into my face. "Sorry."
Her pen scratched faster, like my apology was another distraction.
"Anything else?" she asked without looking up. "Or are you done wasting my time."
I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to think positively the way Myrina used to tell me to.
The Guild Master lets her work here. There must be a reason. She's probably good at her job.
I bowed my head slightly. "No. Thank you."
She didn't respond.
I turned and stepped away before my embarrassment could turn into something uglier.
For a moment I drifted toward the quest board out of habit—eyes scanning for simple errands, fruit runs, delivery notes—because that was what I did when my mind didn't know what else to do.
Then Sir Erdallion's words cut through me:
You will not take errand quests during this training.
And the woman's instructions echoed:
You rest.
I stepped away from the board.
I headed back toward the stairs.
My legs screamed in protest, but I moved anyway, thoughts swirling like smoke.
Nerissa and Sir Erdallion in the capital.
Above my clearance.
Why did that make my chest tight too?
And why, when my mind wandered, did it keep drifting back to Mya and that cookie pouch in Arlo's hand?
The image flashed again.
Mya smiling shyly.
Arlo taking it.
My chest squeezing like a fist from the inside.
And my body answered with pain.
I gritted my teeth and kept walking.
***
Halfway to the stairs, someone brushed past me.
Fast.
Too fast.
A small figure moving with purpose and panic.
I caught the edge of a familiar sleeve.
"Mya?" I said, turning.
She didn't stop.
She didn't even look.
She moved toward the guild's entrance, head down, shoulders tight.
And as she passed under the light, I saw it—
a droplet of water clinging to her chin.
Not sweat.
Tears.
My stomach dropped.
"Mya!" I called louder.
Still nothing.
She pushed out through the doors and into the daylight like she couldn't breathe inside.
I stood there for half a second, frozen between exhaustion and worry.
My legs felt like they were about to snap.
My body begged me to go back upstairs and rest.
But my mind wouldn't let me.
Because Mya was crying.
And because I had just watched her give Arlo cookies.
And because the way she'd fled looked like shame.
I turned on stiff legs and headed back toward the classroom.
Each step hurt.
But I went anyway.
***
The classroom door was still open.
Inside, the room was empty.
Desks stood in neat rows. Sunlight slanted through the windows. The air still smelled faintly of paper and ink and chalk dust.
And on the floor near the front—
a pouch.
Cloth, tied, familiar.
Cookies.
Some of them were scattered out, broken pieces on the boards like someone had dropped them in a rush.
I walked toward them, breath catching.
As I got closer, the smell hit me.
Burnt.
Not the warm, sweet burn of overbaked sugar.
This was sharper.
Heavier.
Like something had been charred too fast, like a pan left on a flame that was too hot.
The cookies themselves looked wrong—blackened in places, hard around the edges, cracked like they'd been dried out instead of baked.
I crouched quickly, panic in my hands.
No one else was here.
No one was cleaning it.
Mya had run.
I started picking up the pieces, careful, as if the cookies could cut me.
The burnt smell clung to my fingers.
I gathered them back toward the pouch, trying to make it look less like a disaster.
One cookie piece had a darker spot on it, almost glossy, like it had been scorched instantly rather than slowly.
I stared at it, brow furrowing.
Did it… burn like this in her bag?
My stomach tightened.
I lifted it closer, not to eat—just to inspect. The smell was strong enough to sting my nose.
I didn't know why, but some stupid part of my brain thought:
Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe it's just burnt. Maybe Arlo overreacted. Maybe Mya will feel better if someone says it's fine.
I brought it closer to my mouth without thinking.
And then—
"DON'T!! Don't eat that!!"
The voice hit me like a slap.
I whipped around.
Arlo stood in the doorway.
His face was pale—more than usual. Sweat shined at his temples. One hand gripped the doorframe like he needed it to stand.
The other clutched his stomach, fingers digging in like he was trying to hold something inside himself.
He looked like he'd run here and nearly collapsed doing it.
Arlo's eyes were wide, frantic.
"That is poison," he gasped, voice shaking. "Not a cookie—don't eat it or you will die!"
The words were dramatic, wild, and for a split second the room felt like it tilted.
I stared at him.
"Poison?" I repeated dumbly.
Arlo staggered forward a step, then doubled slightly, breath coming in harsh bursts.
"I ate one," he choked out. "Just one! And my stomach—my stomach tried to kill me. I—don't—don't—"
He gagged on the words like they were fighting to escape.
My fingers tightened around the cookie piece.
So he hadn't just said something rude and walked away.
He'd come back.
He'd come back even while looking like he could barely stand.
I set the cookie down slowly, heart pounding.
Arlo saw my movement and exhaled shakily, relief flickering across his face.
Then my mind caught up to something else.
Mya had been crying.
Arlo had been with her.
And now Arlo was here, pale and panicking, calling her cookies poison.
The pieces snapped together in my head with cruel simplicity.
I stood.
The movement made my legs scream, but I ignored it.
I walked toward Arlo.
He was taller than me by a bit. He always was. But right now he looked smaller, bent over his own pain.
I stopped close enough that he had to look at me.
"Did you make Mya cry?" I asked.
Arlo flinched.
His eyes darted away to the side, refusing to meet mine.
"I…" he started, voice hoarse. "I didn't mean it."
Anger rose in my chest, sudden and hot and unfamiliar.
It wasn't clean anger.
It was messy.
It had teeth.
It came from exhaustion and grief and the tightness that had been building all day with nowhere to go.
I clenched my hands at my sides, forcing them not to shake.
"Why did you make her cry?" I pressed.
Arlo's jaw tightened. He swallowed hard like even swallowing hurt.
Then, finally, he looked at me.
His eyes were sharp, stubborn, even through pain.
"I just want to be honest, okay?!" he snapped, voice cracking. "I'm sick of pretending everything is good when it's not!"
His breathing hitched. He clutched his stomach tighter, but he kept going like the words mattered more than the pain.
"She's the worst!" he blurted, and the way he said it made my chest flare. "Her cookie tastes like an absolute garba—"
Something inside me went quiet.
Not calm.
Not peace.
Just… silence.
Like a line snapped.
I saw Mya's face in my mind—pink cheeks, shy smile, careful kindness.
I saw her running past me with tears on her chin.
I heard Sir Erdallion's warning about losing yourself under strain.
And then my fist moved before my mind could stop it.
My knuckles hit Arlo's face.
The impact shocked me as much as it shocked him.
It wasn't a heroic punch.
It wasn't clean.
It was the ugly sound of skin meeting bone.
Arlo's head snapped to the side. He stumbled backward, feet tangling, and for a moment I thought he might swing back—
He didn't.
He staggered, hand still on his stomach, and dropped to one knee with a pained gasp. Not from the punch alone.
From everything.
He didn't fight.
He didn't even try.
He just… stayed there, shaking, breathing hard, eyes wide with surprise and hurt.
My fist throbbed.
I stared at it like it belonged to someone else.
My heart pounded so hard it made my vision blur at the edges.
What had I just done?
I'd wanted to punch him.
I'd imagined it for half a heartbeat—
But I hadn't thought I would actually do it.
I hadn't thought I could.
I took a step back, breath catching.
Arlo wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. A smear of red streaked across his skin.
My stomach lurched.
"I…" I started.
No words came.
Arlo lifted his head slightly, eyes unfocused like he was trying to understand what had happened while his body still fought whatever was twisting his stomach.
He didn't look angry.
He looked… stunned.
And sick.
Horribly sick.
Horror crawled up my spine.
I hit someone who couldn't even stand.
I wasn't defending Mya in some brave way.
I'd just… snapped.
The room felt too bright.
Too open.
The scattered burnt cookies lay on the floor between us like evidence.
Then—
Footsteps.
Firm. Controlled.
Coming down the hall toward the classroom.
My blood went cold.
I knew those steps.
Not Nerissa's light pace.
Not Barrek's heavy stomp.
Miss Nanda.
Arlo's eyes flicked past me toward the hallway, fear sharpening through the pain.
My chest tightened, a different kind of pressure now—consequence.
I was still standing over Arlo.
My fist still clenched.
My knuckles still stung.
And my mind suddenly understood, with brutal clarity:
I had just made my life harder.
Right before training.
Right when Sir Erdallion had warned me about losing control.
The footsteps stopped at the doorway.
A shadow fell across the floor.
And Miss Nanda's voice cut into the room like a blade.
"What," she said, calm and dangerous, "is going on here?"