The tower did not sleep after the bracelet snapped.
It simmered.
John could feel it in the hours that followed: a low, constant tension in the lattice, like muscle held too long just shy of a cramp. The hum never spiked into full alarm. It just… refused to relax.
Neither did anyone in the suite.
Brian finally cried himself out and slumped into a fretful sleep on Doris's shoulder. She didn't dare put him down at first. Every time
she tried, his fingers curled in her robe and his breathing hitched.
Dorothy watched the ceiling, staff across her knees, eyes half-lidded.
Flint paced.
He made three full circuits between door and window before John said, "You're wearing a trench."
"I'm trying not to stab anything," Flint replied. "Let me have this."
John couldn't argue.
He felt restless too.
Halvar's presence passed their door twice—once in a fast, focused stride, once slower, heavier, like someone returning from a difficult
conversation. Each time, the ward-sigil brightened, then dimmed as he moved on.
No knock.
No summons.
Yet.
When dawn finally smeared gray over the city, the tower's bells rang later than usual. Half the Academy had been woken by the ward wrench; the other half had heard about it by second-hand panic. Even a machine made of stone and politics needed an extra beat to gather itself.
Breakfast trays didn't arrive.
Instead, a warden knocked and said, "Rector Halvar requests your presence in the council chamber. As soon as you're able."
Doris's arms tightened around Brian. "All of us?" she asked.
"All named," the warden said. "Including the infant."
Flint muttered, "Of course. Why not bring the key to the room where everyone's arguing about who gets to use him?"
Dorothy stood, joints protesting. "We're not leaving him alone anyway," she said. "Better to hear what they're plotting while the ink's
still wet."
John buckled his sword on without being told.
No one mentioned that bringing a weapon into the inner tower council was technically frowned upon.
The warden pretended not to see.
The council chamber sat like a knot at the heart of Aetherion.
John had only been inside it once before—a brief, disorienting meeting the day after they arrived. This time, everything felt sharper.
Or maybe he was just listening harder.
The chamber was circular, walls lined with high, shuttered windows. A stone table, wide and ringed with chairs, dominated the center.
Wards laced the room so densely that the air felt thicker than water.
As they stepped through the door, John felt layers pass over him:
Outer ward — checking identity.
Inner ward — muffling sound leakage.
Core ward — watching.
He fought the urge to square his shoulders like he was entering a battlefield.
It kind of was.
Maevra sat at the head of the circle, posture straight despite the faint shadows under her eyes. Halvar stood behind an empty chair to
her right, chain neat now, robe adjusted. On her left, Serais folded his hands, expression calm, dark eyes taking in everything.
Lyr leaned against the wall near a shelf of old scroll cases, copper-capped braid swinging gently. Ren Kaltan occupied a seat that
looked more like an afterthought than a true place at the table, papers neatly stacked, ink pen at the ready.
Vela was there.
Of course she was.
Her posture was perfect.
Her mouth was a tight, offended line.
Teren stood near the far wall, flanked by two wardens. He looked pale, sullen, wrist bandaged. Myla and Jen sat uneasily on a bench, clearly not allowed to leave but not quite under guard.
Kael perched by the door, hands on his knees, eyes flicking between everyone like he expected lightning to hit.
When John, Doris, Dorothy, Flint, and Brian entered, half a dozen gazes shifted.
The lattice in the room pulsed.
"Thank you for coming," Maevra said. Her voice was cool, measured. "We have much to discuss. Sit."
There were chairs set aside for them near the table.
Doris chose the one closest to the wall, Brian in her lap, cloak arranged so that only his face was visible. John took the seat at her side. Flint remained half-standing behind them, refusing to put his back anywhere he couldn't see.
Dorothy sat with deliberate casualness, staff resting against her shoulder.
The ward hum adjusted around them, as if the room had just grown a new center of gravity.
Maevra let the silence stretch for a few breaths, eyes moving from face to face, measuring.
Then she said, "Last night, three students altered wardlines in an unsanctioned hall and attempted to piggyback a resonance test onto the tower lattice. As a result, the already unstable patterns around the infant in this room were stressed further. I am displeased."
"Displeased," Lyr echoed dryly. "That's one word for it."
"We will address student discipline shortly," Maevra continued. "First, I want the timeline. Kael."
Kael jerked slightly, then stood. His voice, when it came, was steady.
"I woke before first bell," he said. "The hum was… wrong. Higher. I followed it down to the old Red Wing lecture hall. I heard them talking. Teren was in the circle. The bracelet—" his gaze flicked to Teren's wrist "—was glowing. The sigils were altered. They said it was 'just a resonance echo test.' They mentioned Professor Vela's name."
Vela's mouth flattened.
Kael continued. "The whine got sharper. I felt a… hook. Not like the ones outside. Smaller. Inside. Like a needle riding the lattice. It was heading up. I didn't have time to get a warden. I stepped in, tried to break their nerve. Then the tower hit the circle from below. The bracelet snapped. Rector Halvar arrived."
He left out the bit where his vision had filled with cracking towns.
John was pretty sure Dorothy heard that omission anyway.
Halvar took over smoothly.
"I was awake already," he said. "The Spire pinged me when the altered pattern crossed a sensitivity threshold. I traced it to the hall.
Found Kael, three students, and stupidity on the floor."
Jen and Myla flinched.
Teren stared at a point somewhere over Halvar's shoulder.
Halvar's gaze hardened. "The circle's weave had been tampered with. Two safety glyphs erased, replaced with a variation of the
Paragon crack symbol. Not full strength, but close enough to scrape old scars. The bracelet contained bone and twine tuned to that variation. When the students pushed a resonance wave through it, the hook reached up the internal lattice and brushed the suite wards."
He inclined his head slightly toward Doris and John.
"The extra blanket you wove helped," he added to Dorothy. "It absorbed enough of the first pulse that your counterstrike didn't shatter half my anchors."
"I aim to disappoint your disaster fantasies," Dorothy said.
Halvar's mouth twitched. "Keep doing that."
Maevra steepled her fingers. "Impact on the child?" she asked.
Doris's spine went rigid.
"He woke before the worst of it," she said, voice tight. "He… felt something. Cracks. Wrongness. He didn't scream like last time. But he stiffened. He saw something that wasn't this room. Then Dorothy cut the line.
He cried. He's sleeping now. Not well."
Her hand stroked Brian's back unconsciously.
The room's hum dipped, as if in sympathy.
Serais leaned forward slightly. "Any lasting aura?" he asked softly. "Residual external resonance?"
"None," Dorothy said. "I checked. Twice. Whatever images he caught were impressions only. No hooks left in him."
"Better than we deserved," Lyr muttered.
All eyes turned to the three students.
Teren flushed red under the bandage.
Myla's eyes were wet.
Jen stared at his shoes.
"Teren," Maevra said. "Explain."
He drew himself up.
Even now, John could see the calculation behind his anger—the need to sound right, not just to be right.
"We were conducting research," Teren said. "Professor Vela has been very clear that uncontrolled resonance events—like the one surrounding the Voidborn infant—pose a threat to the stability of the wards. She said the more we understand, the better we can protect the Empire. The bracelet was a focus. An amplifier. Not a Paragon tool, a counter-tool. We were trying to read the hum, not… not damage anything."
"Read," Lyr repeated. "With cracked symbols and bone knots. On my floors."
Teren flushed darker. "The diagrams in Professor Vela's seminar—"
"I didn't authorise this," Vela cut in sharply.
All attention shifted to her.
Her expression was composed.
Her shoulders were tight.
"I told my students that resonance events are dangerous," she said. "I told them we need data. I did not tell them to break the rules, steal contaminated materials, and poke the wards in the middle of the night."
Teren stared. "You said—"
"I said," Vela interrupted, "that the Empire's future may depend on understanding what this child is. That does not mean I handed you
that." Her gaze flicked disdainfully to the bracelet bandage. "If I had, you wouldn't have almost torn your own channels in the process."
"So you do know what it was," Lyr said.
"Of course I do," Vela snapped. "It's a link focus. Old Voidborn theory, before they learned better. I've studied it for years. As a
cautionary example."
"Old theory," Dorothy said. "Which the Paragons love. Funny how bits of your cautionary work keep ending up on the wrong wrists."
Vela rounded on her. "Are you suggesting I gave him that?"
"I'm suggesting someone did," Dorothy said, voice mild. "And that your lectures have made it easy for them to think doing something with it would be 'research' instead of what it is: echoing a cult ritual with nicer handwriting."
The tension in the room thickened.
The ward hum went tight as wire.
Maevra raised one hand.
Silence fell.
"Professor Vela," she said. "Did you at any point suggest to your students that an unsupervised night experiment might be a reasonable method for gathering data on the Aetheris child's resonance?"
Vela drew herself up. "No."
"Did you give any student in this room access to restricted Voidborn pattern diagrams without informing Master Lyr or myself?"
"No," Vela said. "I submitted all requests through proper channels, as always."
"Did you give Teren that bracelet?" Maevra asked.
Vela's jaw clenched. "No," she said.
Her denial rang sharp.
But not… hollow.
John listened—not just to the word, but to the way the lattice over her chair shifted.
There was no oily slip there.
No echo of the Paragon crack.
Just her usual cold, tightly coiled self, offended at being questioned.
She might be lying about some things.
Not that.
Maevra seemed to come to the same conclusion.
"Teren," she said. "From whom did you receive the bracelet?"
Teren's eyes flicked to Vela.
To the wardens.
To Kael.
To John and Doris and Brian.
He looked suddenly, desperately young.
"It was… a gift," he said. "From a… visiting scholar. I didn't catch the name."
"Try again," Halvar said.
Teren swallowed. "They approached me after seminar. Said they'd read my papers. Said I had 'potential.' Said the Academy was too
cautious, that someone needed to be brave enough to test the theories properly. They gave me the bracelet and said it would 'help me feel the line.' Said if the wards reacted, it meant we were closer to the truth."
"And you thought this was a good idea," Halvar said flatly.
Teren flared. "They believed in me," he snapped. "More than most of you ever have. You treat us like children and then act surprised when we try to act like adults."
Myla winced. "Teren…"
Jen hunched into himself.
Ren spoke for the first time.
"Describe this 'scholar,'" he said quietly.
Teren hesitated.
"Cloak," he said eventually. "Gray. No house colors. Accented speech. From the east, maybe. Older than us, younger than the Rector. They knew the old symbols. They quoted Professor Vela's work and… and some of Doriane Aetheris's old annotations."
Doris jerked back as if struck.
"My annotations," she said. "From the vault?"
Vela's head snapped toward her. "You had no clearance to be in there," she said.
"I had plenty before I ran," Doris shot back. "You people just pretended I didn't exist once I left."
Lyr's eyes narrowed. "No one outside this tower should know about those annotations," she said. "I redacted them myself before I let anyone copy the diagrams."
Ren's expression didn't change, but the wards around his chair cooled. "It seems," he said, "that the Paragons have a better archive than we thought."
"Or a better spy," Dorothy said.
The silence thickened.
Teren shifted uneasily.
"I didn't know," he muttered. "I thought… I thought they were from another Academy. Or the Spire. They knew so much. They made it sound… important. Like we'd be heroes if we helped prevent another collapse."
"You wanted to be special," Flint said from the edge of the circle. "So when a stranger waved a fancy bracelet at you and told you who you
were, you believed them."
Teren's eyes flashed. "What would you have done?" he demanded. "If someone came to you and said you could help save the world?"
"Asked more questions," Flint said. "And picked their pockets."
Halvar's lips quirked despite himself.
Maevra exhaled slowly.
"The specifics of this 'scholar' and how they accessed our halls will be addressed," she said. Her gaze cut to Ren. "I expect the Church will take a keen interest."
Ren inclined his head. "We have very strong feelings about people offering dangerous gifts in the name of purity," he said.
Maevra nodded once.
"Now," she said. "On to consequences."
She looked at the three students, and for a heartbeat John almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
"Jen, Myla," Maevra said. "You will be removed from all advanced seminars for the remainder of the season. You will spend your free periods assisting Master Lyr with cataloguing ward damage from historical
incidents and copying, by hand, the section of Academy law that covers unsanctioned experiments."
Myla paled. "Head Rectrix—"
"You participated," Maevra said, not unkindly. "You doubted, and you still stood in the circle. Doubt is not enough. Action matters."
Her gaze swung to Teren.
"You," she said, "will submit to a full channel assessment, including external audits by Church and Crown. Until those are complete, you are barred from any ritual space, any ward adjacency, and any Paragon-related text. You will be confined to supervised quarters when not in appointed classes. You will assist Master Lyr in purification of the hall you damaged and the garden you polluted."
Teren's mouth worked. "You're treating me like a criminal," he said hoarsely.
"I am treating you like someone who put a hooked knife into my wards next to a baby's soul," Maevra said. "You are lucky I am not treating you like a traitor."
Halvar's jaw twitched.
He did not disagree.
Vela opened her mouth.
Maevra raised her hand.
"Professor Vela," she said. "You will suspend your seminar on Voidborn patterns until further notice. All materials associated with it
will be transferred to Master Lyr's custody for review. You will refrain from independent contact with the Aetheris family. Any future research proposals involving the child's resonance will go through this council. Not hypothetical councils in your head. This one."
Vela's eyes flashed.
"That is an overreach," she said. "You cannot muzzle my scholarship because a few overenthusiastic students misinterpreted it."
"I can and will," Maevra said. "This is not about your scholarship. It is about your inability to recognise how your words are being used."
Vela's hands clenched on the table.
"The Empire needs this work," she hissed. "You sit there pretending we can just… just ignore what he is. What he could do. And
meanwhile, the Paragons dig under our feet. We are running out of time to understand
the forces at play, Maevra. Some of us are trying to prevent the next collapse, not just survive it."
"And some of us," Dorothy said, "are trying not to repeat the last one while you're busy admiring the diagrams."
Vela shot her a venomous look. "This from the woman who ran rather than face her responsibilities."
"This from the woman who watched your 'cautionary' paper nearly get my son used as a tuning fork," Doris cut in, voice low and shaking. "You talk about prevention. You talk about saving the world. But every time you
say 'Voidborn,' what you mean is 'tool.' I'm done being one. He will never be."
The room's hum spiked.
The cradle of wards around their corner of the chamber thickened, responding to her fury.
Brian stirred in her lap and made a small, unhappy sound.
Doris bent immediately, murmuring his name.
Serais broke the tension with a soft, deliberate cough.
"We are circling the same argument," he said. "Understand, yes. Control, perhaps. Ownership, no. The Church will not support any policy that treats this child as property, however politely that property is referred to."
Vela's lip curled. "You would rather we wait until he shatters the tower and then light candles in the ruins."
"I would rather," Serais said, "we admit that we will never have total control over any living soul, and plan accordingly."
Maevra rapped her knuckles lightly on the table.
"Enough," she said.
The word carried weight.
Even the wards seemed to still.
"We are not resolving centuries of ethical debate in one morning," she said. "We are setting immediate protections. Rector Halvar."
Halvar straightened. "The suite lattice stays as is," he said. "No student rituals near those lines, no adjustments without Dorothy's
sign-off. The west quadrant remains under enhanced watch. Any visiting scholars will be vetted more aggressively and tracked more closely while in the tower. Teren's bracelet and the garden knot are already ash, but I've asked Lyr to compare the residue. If there are more like them, we will find them."
Lyr grunted. "They'll wish I hadn't," she said.
Ren shuffled his papers. "The Church," he said, "will issue a reminder to all affiliated scholars that using Paragon-adjacent symbology in 'theoretical' work is frowned upon while the city is under increased threat. We will also be… speaking… to the local congregations about strangers bearing gifts."
"That last part sounds ominous," Flint murmured.
"It's meant to," Ren said mildly.
Maevra's gaze returned to John, Doris, and Brian.
"You have been pulled into our war sooner than any of us wished," she said. "The Academy remains committed to your safety. Last night's incident was a failure of oversight. It will not be repeated."
"That seems optimistic," Flint said.
"It is a vow," Maevra corrected. "Not a guarantee. We will err. We will miss things. But we will not stop trying to hold the line."
John met her eyes.
Beyond the formal words, he heard something else:
We are tired. We are not broken.
"We don't expect miracles," he said. "We expect honesty. If you tell us when you err, we can help brace the line rather than finding out
only when it breaks."
Maevra's mouth curved, almost invisibly.
"Noted," she said.
Her gaze softened—fractionally—on Brian.
"He is… quieter today," she observed.
Doris stroked his hair. "He's learning," she said. "To tell our humming from theirs."
Maevra's eyes flicked to Dorothy.
"And you?"
"Tired," Dorothy said. "And annoyed. Which is my natural state, so nothing's on fire yet."
A faint ripple of dry amusement passed through the room.
Even Ren's lips twitched.
Maevra rose.
The ward hum shifted with her, recognizing an ending.
"This council will reconvene when we have more information about this 'scholar' and any other threads they may have woven," she said. "Until then, no one—no one—makes unilateral decisions about the Aetheris child's exposure to experimental magic."
Her gaze pinned Vela for a heartbeat.
Then swept the room.
"Dismissed," she said.
They didn't leave immediately.
Wardens ushered Teren, Myla, and Jen out first, flanking them like the edges of a corridor.
Teren shot one last look at Brian as he passed.
Not hatred.
Not exactly.
Resentment.
Fear.
Longing to be seen as something other than a problem, twisted now into something sour.
John filed the expression away.
Faces in the hum.
He'd remember this one.
Vela left soon after, spine stiff, anger radiating off her in cold waves. The wards around her chair still vibrated faintly, like strings plucked too hard.
Ren cornered Serais quietly, already speaking about shrines and sermons.
Lyr vanished with the disturbing efficiency of old habit, probably headed straight for whatever notes might lead her to the bracelet's origin.
Halvar lingered.
He approached their side of the room, chain glinting.
"You all right?" he asked.
Doris looked exhausted.
"Yes," she lied.
Halvar smiled faintly. "Better," he corrected.
He glanced at Brian.
The baby slept through the end of the world, this time.
Halvar's shoulders loosened a fraction.
"You did well," he said to Doris and John. "Not just in weathering it. In naming it. There's a difference between being a victim and being a witness. You've earned the latter."
"I didn't come here to be either," Doris said.
"No one does," Halvar said. "But here we are."
He hesitated, then added, "Kael will be under some scrutiny after this. He inserted himself into a dangerous situation without
authorisation."
"He saved us minutes," Dorothy said. "Minutes matter."
"I know," Halvar said. "I'm not punishing him. I am… trying to keep him from getting himself killed by being useful in all the wrong ways."
Flint snorted. "Good luck."
Halvar smiled briefly. "If I had good luck, I'd have retired to a quiet library years ago."
"You don't have quiet libraries," Lyr's voice called from the doorway. "You have mine."
"And you're in it," Halvar said. "Which proves my point."
Doris shifted Brian in her arms.
Her fingers brushed the boy's neck.
He stirred, half-waking, then settled again at the sound of her heartbeat.
"They're not going to stop," she murmured. "The Paragons. The Vela types. The strangers with bracelets. They're all going to keep trying to use him. To reach him. To pull on whatever it is that makes the wards listen when he cries."
Halvar nodded. "Yes," he said. "They are."
John's jaw tightened. "You're very calm about that."
"No," Halvar said. "I'm very practiced. Calm is something I fake so other people don't panic before they need to."
Dorothy's mouth twitched. "Honesty. In a council chamber. We truly live in dangerous times."
Halvar gave them a small bow. "Get some rest," he said. "He'll need you steady when the next wave comes."
"When, not if," Flint muttered.
"I've given up on 'if,'" Halvar said. "I deal in 'when' and 'how badly.'"
He left.
The room emptied.
The wards calmed, slowly, like a muscle unclenching.
Only Maevra remained, standing by one of the shuttered windows, looking out at the thin strip of sky.
As they moved toward the door, she spoke without turning.
"Doriane."
Doris stopped.
"Yes," she said quietly.
Maevra's profile was sharp in the wardlight.
"You ran," the Head Rectrix said. "Years ago. I understood why. That understanding does not erase the consequences of your absence."
Doris went very still.
"We needed you," Maevra continued. "Your understanding of these patterns. Your bloodline's living memory. We had to make do with fragments. With secondhand caution and thirdhand fear. And now…"
She turned, finally, gaze on Brian.
"…now the world has forced you back into the story you tried to escape."
Doris's throat worked. "Is this a lecture?" she asked. "Or an apology?"
"Neither," Maevra said. "It is a statement of fact. Followed by a promise."
She stepped closer—slowly, carefully, as if approaching a wounded animal.
"I will not let them make him what your ancestors were at their worst," Maevra said. "I may fail. The Paragons may outmaneuver us. The Emperor may demand things I cannot permit. But as long as I hold this position,
I will not sign a single decree that treats him as anything other than a person. Not a weapon. Not a wardstone. Not a prophecy."
Doris searched her face.
"How do I trust that?" she whispered.
Maevra's gaze was unflinching. "You don't," she said. "You watch me. You learn my hum. If I lie, you'll hear it."
Dorothy made a soft, approving sound.
"Welcome to our club," she said.
Maevra's mouth twitched once at the corner.
Then she stepped back.
"Go," she said. "You've done enough for one morning."
They left the council chamber together, stepping back into corridors that hummed with gossip and worry and the faint, bitter tang of bone dust burned from wardlines.
John rested his hand on the wall as they walked.
The stone felt… different.
Not entirely in a bad way.
There were new knots in the lattice now—places where Halvar had reinforced, where Lyr had scrubbed, where Dorothy's counterstrike's had left stronger threads behind.
Cracks had been revealed.
Some had been patched.
Others waited.
Brian slept in Doris's arms, unaware of councils and consequences.
But somewhere in his dreams, there were memories of cracks and lines and the feeling of something being cut before it reached him.
He whimpered once.
Doris hummed the road-song.
The tower hummed with her.
For the moment, the lines held.
Not forever.
But for now.
And for now, was where they lived.