Relay City did not sleep.
It paused.
That was the best way I could describe it. The streets never emptied, the towers never dimmed, but there were moments where everything slowed just enough to breathe before the next wave of urgency hit. Like a lung refusing to collapse.
I learned this on my third night there, when I realized I had not seen the sky in hours.
"You're doing it again," Virex said.
"I'm thinking."
"You're spiraling."
I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in the chair that absolutely did not belong to a student. The room we'd been assigned wasn't large, but it was efficient. Stone desk. Signal slate. Maps etched directly into the walls. Someone important had used this room once.
Now it was mine.
That alone made me uneasy.
Since Tower Twelve, things had escalated fast. Too fast. Not in obvious ways. No alarms. No declarations. Just subtle shifts. Fewer jokes in the corridors. More sealed doors. More eyes lingering a second too long.
And more work.
Every morning, I was handed reports. Not orders. Not requests. Reports. As if someone assumed I would naturally know what to do with them.
Relay fluctuation logs. Delayed transmissions. Interrupted echoes. Failed pings that technically shouldn't fail.
Patterns were emerging. Not clean ones. Messy, overlapping, inconvenient ones.
"You're not wrong," I muttered. "The system's built on assumptions."
Virex lounged on the desk, tail flicking lazily. "Everything is."
"They assume magic behaves the same everywhere."
"It doesn't."
"They assume distance matters more than intent."
"It doesn't."
"They assume nothing watches the channels."
Virex grinned. "That one's my favorite."
I stood and walked to the wall-map, tracing the relay network with my finger. The farther signals traveled north, the worse they behaved. Not uniformly. Not predictably. It was like something nudged them just enough to misalign.
Not block.
Redirect.
"What if it's not interference," I said slowly. "What if it's response?"
"To what?" Virex asked.
I didn't answer.
Because the answer scared me.
Knock. Sharp. Professional.
Before I could respond, the door opened. A man entered, followed by two scribes. He wore no robes. No insignia. Just clean, layered clothing and the expression of someone who had never waited for permission in his life.
"Strategist," he said, nodding slightly. Not a bow. A measurement. "You're becoming popular."
"I hate that word," I replied.
He smiled like he agreed but didn't care. "The relay council wants projections."
"About what?"
"How bad this gets."
I gestured to the chair. "Define 'bad.'"
He didn't sit.
"That's not comforting," Virex said.
The man glanced at him. Paused. Then continued like talking animals were just another item on the list. "If the outer towers fail completely, the empire loses real-time communication across three borders."
"That's bad," I said.
"If inner relays degrade," he continued, "we lose command cohesion."
"Worse."
"If the central array destabilizes—"
I held up a hand. "Stop."
He stopped.
I inhaled. Slowly. "You're asking the wrong question."
He raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"
"Not how bad it gets," I said. "But when it decides to stop playing nice."
Silence.
Even the scribes hesitated.
"That's not an acceptable answer," the man said.
"Neither is pretending this is a technical issue," I replied. "Something is interacting with your system intentionally. You can't optimize your way out of that."
Virex clapped once. "He's learning."
The man studied me again, longer this time. "You're young."
"Yes."
"You lack clearance."
Also yes.
"And yet you speak like someone who expects the world to listen."
I smiled tiredly. "No. I speak like someone who knows it won't."
That earned a quiet laugh.
"Draft your projections," he said finally. "Worst case included."
"Worst case?" I echoed.
He turned to leave. "The relays start answering back."
When the door closed, I sat down hard.
"Well," Virex said cheerfully, "that escalated."
That night bled into the next day. Then the next.
I stopped attending formal academy sessions entirely. No one questioned it. Relay City had its own hierarchy, and right now, it outranked education.
I worked.
I mapped failures. Charted inconsistencies. Proposed temporary reroutes that avoided certain… sensitive areas. The towers complied. Reluctantly.
Each workaround bought time.
None solved the problem.
"You're burning out," Virex said on the fifth day.
"I'm fine."
"You've eaten once."
"Efficient."
"You're fourteen."
I stopped writing.
That landed harder than it should've.
Outside the window, signal lights pulsed in controlled rhythm. A heartbeat. Artificial. Persistent.
"What if I'm just delaying the inevitable," I said quietly.
"That's most jobs," Virex replied. "Difference is, you know it."
I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "They're pushing me because the last expedition went dark."
"Yes."
"And because the second one followed."
"Yes."
"And because whatever's out there isn't done."
Virex didn't answer.
Which meant I was right.
"They want me to think like it," I realized. "Not as a mage. Not as a scholar. As… something else."
"As a bridge," Virex said softly.
I laughed. Weak. "That's a terrible role."
"Usually fatal."
Great.
Another knock. Softer this time.
The door opened, and Elira stepped in.
She looked exhausted.
Not physically. Strategically. Like someone juggling too many futures and watching all of them slip.
"You're avoiding me," she said.
"I'm busy."
"You're hiding."
I gestured at the maps. "Hardly subtle."
She stepped closer, eyes scanning the walls. "You see it now, don't you."
I met her gaze. "You knew before I did."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"No."
She exhaled. "Because once you saw it, there was no walking away."
I didn't argue.
Outside, a distant tower dimmed for half a second.
Then stabilized.
Temporary.
I closed my eyes.
Relay City hummed.
And somewhere beyond it, something listened.