The morning after the papers were signed at State Lodge, Leya didn't wake up feeling powerful. She woke up in her small bed in the guest cottage, staring at the ceiling and realizing she had nowhere to go.
The "National Resource Transparency Act" was a grand name for a piece of paper, but it didn't change the fact that her school uniform was still wrinkled on the floor and her stomach was in knots.
When she walked onto the ZIA campus at 7:30 AM, the air felt different. It wasn't the usual Monday morning bustle. It was quiet. Too quiet.
"Leya!"
She turned to see Zazu. He looked small. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he was wearing a hoodie pulled low over his face, trying to vanish.
"My dad didn't come home last night," Zazu whispered as they huddled behind the stone pillar of the assembly hall. "He stayed at the office with the lawyers. My mom... she hasn't looked at me since we left the Lodge. She just moved my things into a trunk and left it in the hallway."
Leya felt a pang of guilt that tasted like copper. "Zazu, I'm so sorry. I didn't think—"
"I did it because it was right," Zazu snapped, but his voice lacked its usual steel. It sounded fragile. "But being right feels a lot like being homeless, Leya. I'm fifteen. I can't even open a bank account without a guardian, and my guardians currently want to pretend I don't exist."
They watched as a black sedan pulled up to the administrative wing. Out stepped **Mrs. Mulenga**, the Librarian. She didn't look at them, but she didn't have to. The way she adjusted her glasses was enough to show she knew exactly what had happened.
"The Board is in emergency session," Zazu said, checking his phone. "Musi's dad is calling for an immediate 'security review.' They're saying the signatures at State Lodge were obtained under duress. They're calling us 'delinquent' and 'unstable.'"
"We aren't unstable," Leya said, though her hands were shaking. "We found the truth."
"The truth doesn't pay the school's electricity bill," a voice interrupted.
It was Musi. He wasn't mocking them today. He looked genuinely scared. He held out a printed email. "My dad just got a notification. Because of the 'legal uncertainty' surrounding the land title—*your* title, Leya—the school's insurance has been suspended. The cafeteria is closing. The labs are being locked."
Leya looked around the courtyard. Other students were starting to gather, holding their phones, their faces pale. The news was trickling down. The most elite school in the country was grinding to a halt because two fifteen-year-olds had decided to play heroes.
"You think you're saving the country?" Musi asked, his voice cracking. "My parents are talking about sending me back to the village because their accounts are flagged. Everyone is blaming us, Zazu. Not the Consortium. Us."
Leya looked at the grand, stone buildings of ZIA. For the first time, they didn't look like a castle. They looked like a cage. She was a "landlord" who couldn't buy a soda from the vending machine. She was a "hero" who had just made five hundred of her peers terrified for their futures.
"We need to talk to Mulenga," Leya said, her voice small. "She's the only one who knows the actual rules of this place."
"She won't help us," Zazu said, looking at the door where his mother's car was now parked. "She's part of the 'shadows' my dad talked about. She likes the debt. It keeps everyone in their place."
Leya gripped the strap of her bag. "Then we don't ask for her help. we ask for the records. If we're going to be the ones who 'broke' the school, we're going to be the ones who see what's underneath the floorboards."
They weren't walking like rebels. They were walking like two kids who had just realized they were lost in the woods, trying to find a path back to a home that no longer wanted them.
---
The adrenaline from the assembly was gone, replaced by a cold, hollow dread. Yes, Mrs. Mulenga had been led away in handcuffs. Yes, Arthur Monde had resigned. But as the sun rose on Tuesday morning, the school didn't feel "saved." It felt abandoned.
Leya sat on the edge of the fountain, her fingers picking at a loose thread on her sweater. She looked at the police statement in her lap. It didn't say "Case Closed." It said "Pending Investigation."
"She's out," Zazu said, walking up to her. He didn't have his blazer on; he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. "My dad's lawyers confirmed it. Mrs. Mulenga was released on bail at 4:00 AM. They're saying the 'evidence'—the tape and the photos—is inadmissible because we're minors and we 'stole' them from a private safe."
Leya felt a sick lurch in her stomach. "But she confessed! Everyone heard her!"
"A confession under 'emotional duress' to a crowd of teenagers isn't a legal conviction, Leya," Zazu said, sitting heavily beside her. "To the courts, she's just a dedicated librarian who was harassed by two 'troubled' students. And because we signed those papers at State Lodge, my father is now being accused of using me to stage a political hit on the Board."
The reality hit them like a physical blow. They were fifteen. They had played a game of chess against grandmasters, and while they had taken a few pieces, they had left their own king totally exposed.
"Everyone is looking at us like we're the ones who did something wrong," Leya whispered.
She was right. As the other students walked to their first-period classes, they steered a wide berth around the fountain. The scholarship kids, who Leya thought she was saving, looked at her with pure terror. If the school's funding was frozen because of this "scandal," they were the ones who would be sent home first.
"Musi is telling everyone that we're the reason the cafeteria ran out of milk this morning," Zazu said, staring at his shoes. "He's telling them that your land claim is going to get the school shut down by the end of the month."
"Is it?" Leya asked.
"The Consortium has stopped all transfers," Zazu admitted. "They're 'reviewing the security of their investment.' In adult-speak, that means they're starving the school until we give the land back and shut up about the 2012 files."
Leya looked at her cello case, leaning against the stone. She realized that by "winning" the boardroom, they hadn't ended the war. They had just moved it from the shadows into their own lives. They weren't heroes; they were two kids holding a live grenade, and everyone was backing away before it exploded.
"We can't go to class," Leya said. "We can't just sit there and pretend to do algebra while the school is dying."
"Then where do we go?"
"To the person who knows exactly what Mrs. Mulenga is going to do next," Leya said, standing up. "We're going to talk to Musi's dad. If he's out of the Board, he has nothing left to lose. Maybe he'll finally tell us what the Librarian was actually guarding."
---