The corridors felt narrower after the trial.
Not physically—mentally.
Eyes that once slid past Lyle now paused a beat too long.
Conversations went quiet when he passed.
The instructors who used to ignore him now asked him to "stay after" more often.
It was subtle.
But to someone like Lyle—trained now to read tension in shadows—it was loud.
Too loud.
> I can't let them look too long. Not yet.
He rerouted his day. Took back staircases. Avoided cadet mess halls. Spoke only when necessary.
But none of it stopped the note.
It arrived on the back of his spell log, scribbled in tight, slanted ink:
> "You're not fooling everyone. Meet me. West Tower Archives. Midnight."
—Juno
---
He could have ignored it.
Should have.
But he didn't.
Because something in her tone wasn't accusation.
It was… uncertainty.
Maybe fear.
---
The West Tower was unused after dark. Its archives were filled with old spellbooks, long-shelved relics, and enough echo to make whispers stretch into eternity.
Lyle entered without a light.
He didn't need one.
The Core had begun adjusting his senses, just slightly—letting him see faint outlines through residual mana, feel the dust-shift in the air when someone moved nearby.
He found her on the third level, standing by a broken window, arms crossed.
"You came," she said.
"I usually do when people threaten me nicely."
She turned, eyes sharper than he'd ever seen them.
"You're not normal."
"No one here is."
"Don't dodge it, Lyle. I saw what you did in the arena. You stopped a soul-reactive illusion without casting a single defensive glyph. That's not luck."
He didn't speak.
She stepped closer.
"I checked the records. You don't have a soul-type affinity. Not even latent. So tell me—what the hell are you?"
Lyle's instinct screamed.
Deny. Distract. Disarm.
But another part of him—the deeper voice, the one that had grown since he first touched the Codex—nudged him to pivot.
He tilted his head.
"Why does it matter?"
Juno blinked. "What?"
"I didn't hurt anyone. I didn't break any rules. So why does it matter?"
"Because someone's going to come for you if they think you're hiding something."
He nodded slowly. "You're right."
"Then stop hiding."
He smiled faintly.
"I never said I wasn't."
---
They stood in silence for a long moment.
Then Juno stepped away, pulling something from her satchel—a folded slip of parchment with three overlapping rings burned into the top corner.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked.
Lyle's eyes didn't move, but his heartbeat did.
Slightly.
The Whisper Consortium's seal.
"No," he lied smoothly.
She watched him for a long moment.
Then burned the parchment in her palm.
"I don't want to believe you're working with them," she said. "So I won't."
And she left.
---
As soon as she was gone, Lyle opened his palm.
A small black shard shimmered to life.
> [Codex Triggered: Defensive Override Initiated.]
Bluff Resonance Activated – Emotional detection suppressed within 5m radius.
[Deception Stat Increased – +1 to Passive Inference Control]
*[Hidden Trait Unlocked: "Threadwalker" – You can carry two opposing truths at once, without detection.]
He stared into the darkness where Juno had stood.
And for the first time in a long while, he didn't feel alone.
> She doesn't trust me.
But she also doesn't want to be the one to catch me.
And that… was leverage.