Chapter 10: Damage Control
Marcus rehearsed lies the whole walk to combat class.
The Italian? Just gibberish. Dreams are weird. I read some old book once. My grandmother was Italian. Each excuse felt thinner than the last. Willie had heard him clearly—coherent sentences, emotional dialogue, a conversation with someone who'd been dead for four hundred years.
The training room smelled like sweat and floor cleaner. Marcus took his position in the third row, muscles still aching from yesterday's drills, mind split between the coming lesson and the problem of his roommate. Isabella's knowledge settled uneasily in his consciousness—thirty years of expertise compressed into a seventeen-year-old brain that wasn't built to hold it.
Combat class passed in a blur. He moved through the forms on autopilot, letting the Shadow Monks' instincts handle the footwork while his brain chewed on damage control. By the time Master Zane dismissed them, Marcus still hadn't found a solution.
He found breakfast instead.
The cafeteria was half-empty at this hour—just the early risers and the insomniacs. Marcus grabbed a tray and found a corner seat, back to the wall, clear view of the door. The eggs were overcooked but hot. He ate without tasting, watching the entrance.
Willie appeared ten minutes later.
Marcus's hands went still on his fork. His roommate moved through the food line with the casual ease of someone who hadn't spent the previous night listening to his friend speak Renaissance Italian. Grabbed coffee, grabbed toast, grabbed an apple he probably wouldn't eat.
Then he walked straight to Marcus's table and sat down across from him.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Willie sipped his coffee. Marcus pushed eggs around his plate. The silence stretched until it started to ache.
"My cousin," Willie said finally, "talks in Spanish when she's stressed."
Marcus looked up.
"She's third-generation. Doesn't speak Spanish awake. But when she's having nightmares?" Willie shrugged. "Fluent. Brain does weird things under pressure."
It was a gift. A bridge back to normalcy, offered without obligation. Willie wasn't asking for explanations. He was providing cover.
"Yeah," Marcus said. His voice came out rough. "Brain does weird things."
"So." Willie bit into his toast. "We done with whatever that was?"
"We're done."
"Cool." Willie chewed, swallowed, reached for his coffee. "Billy's still pissed about Viktor hassling him, by the way. Wants to do something stupid. Might need to talk him down."
Just like that. Topic changed. Crisis managed. Marcus felt something unclench in his chest—a tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying since he woke up with Italian on his tongue.
"What kind of stupid?"
"Revenge stupid. Lex found out Viktor's got a stash of something in his locker. Billy wants to report it to faculty."
"That's..." Marcus shook his head. "That's actually smart, not stupid. Anonymous tip, let the school handle it."
"Yeah, except Billy wants to leave a note signed 'The Rats.'" Willie's expression was flat. "Make sure everyone knows who got him."
"That's the stupid part."
"That's the stupid part."
Marcus rubbed his face with both hands. The Rat alliance was three weeks old and already developing self-destructive impulses. Leadership problems. Coalition management. Things he'd never had to deal with in his previous life, where his biggest responsibility had been meeting quarterly targets.
Previous life. The phrase felt distant now. Like something that had happened to someone else.
"I'll talk to him," Marcus said.
---
Poison class was second period.
Jürgen Denke taught in the old style—lectures followed by practical examination, with occasional fatalities among students who didn't pay attention. He was a heavyset man with kind eyes and hands that had killed more people than most wars. Marcus had learned his name from the show, but seeing him in person was different. The casual competence. The way he handled compounds that could kill a roomful of people like they were kitchen spices.
"Today," Denke announced, "we identify contamination."
He gestured to a table at the front of the room where twenty vials sat in labeled rows. Clear liquids, mostly, with subtle variations in color and clarity that meant nothing to the untrained eye.
"Each vial contains a common poison base. Half are pure. Half have been contaminated with a neutralizing agent—rendering them useless." Denke smiled. "You will identify which are which. You have one hour. Begin."
Students shuffled forward. Marcus hung back, watching how others approached the problem. Most went straight for smell—a rookie mistake that could get you killed with the wrong compound. A few tried visual inspection, tilting vials against the light.
Marcus knew better.
Isabella had taught a variation of this test to her students. Not the same compounds—the Renaissance had different ingredients available—but the principles were identical. Contamination changed density. Changed the way light moved through liquid. Changed the surface tension at the rim of the container.
He walked to the table and picked up the first vial. Tilted it. Watched the liquid slide.
Too smooth. The viscosity's wrong.
Second vial. Third. Fourth. By the seventh, he'd sorted them into two mental categories. By the twelfth, he was certain.
Denke appeared at his shoulder. "You're not testing them."
"Don't need to." Marcus set down vial fifteen. "Contaminated."
"And the others?"
Marcus pointed. "Pure: one, three, five, eight, eleven, fourteen, seventeen, nineteen. Contaminated: two, four, six, seven, nine, ten, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty."
Silence. The other students had stopped working to watch.
Denke picked up vial seven—one Marcus had called contaminated—and held it to the light. His eyebrow rose slightly. "The contamination in this one is less than one percent by volume. How did you identify it?"
Because Isabella spent three years perfecting that exact technique after a botched assassination nearly got her killed.
"The surface tension," Marcus said. "It breaks differently at the edge of the glass."
"Impressive instincts." Denke's voice was neutral, but something flickered in his eyes. Professional recognition. Interest. "Have you studied chemistry before?"
"Some. Self-taught."
"Mmm." Denke turned to the rest of the class. "Mr. Lopez has demonstrated why observation matters more than procedure. You may verify his answers with standard tests, but I suspect you'll find he's correct."
Marcus returned to his seat, aware of eyes tracking him across the room. Most were confused or resentful—the new Rat showing up the Legacies. One pair was calculating.
Saya Kuroki sat three rows back, and she'd stopped pretending she wasn't watching.
---
She found him after class.
Marcus was crossing the courtyard toward the dormitories when Saya materialized from a side corridor, falling into step beside him like she'd been waiting there all morning. Maybe she had.
"You're not what your file says."
No greeting. No preamble. Just the blade of the observation, direct to the target.
Marcus kept walking. "Files miss things."
"Your file says homeless. Street kid. No formal education past eighth grade." Saya's voice was cool, clinical. "That's not someone who identifies one-percent contamination by surface tension."
"I read a lot."
"You read organic chemistry? Toxicology?" She stepped in front of him, forcing a stop. "You identified compounds that most second-year students can't distinguish. Where did that come from?"
Marcus met her eyes. She was shorter than him by several inches, but something about her presence made the height difference irrelevant. Like she was the predator here, regardless of physical dimensions.
Tell her nothing. Give her nothing.
"I'm a quick study."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
They stood in the courtyard, two figures frozen in negotiation, neither willing to break first. Wind stirred the leaves of a tree Marcus couldn't identify. Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed.
Saya studied him for another moment. Then she nodded once—not acceptance, but acknowledgment. The wall existed. She was noting its location for future reference.
"I sponsored you," she said. "That means your performance reflects on me. Continue performing."
She walked away without waiting for a response.
Marcus watched her go, something uncomfortable twisting in his chest. He'd known Saya would be interested in him—she was supposed to be, according to the show. But there was a difference between knowing something abstractly and feeling her attention like a target laser.
She's not just curious anymore. She's hunting.
The thought should have been purely concerning. Instead, part of him felt something he hadn't expected.
Gratitude. For Willie's lie. For the gift of a bridge back to normalcy, offered without strings attached.
When was the last time someone covered for me without wanting something in return?
He couldn't remember. Not in this life. Not in the one before.
Marcus walked toward the dormitory, leaving Saya's questions unanswered in the autumn air.