Lucas let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Then he smiled. Not the usual one, not the smirk he used when he was being difficult or the grin he put on when something went his way.
"You don't have to worry, Sylvia." His voice came out steady and warm. "Your secret's safe with me." He paused for a second, then added quietly, almost like an afterthought that wasn't really an afterthought at all. "You're my friend. Of course I'll keep it."
Sylvia looked at him for a moment. The way she did sometimes — like she was weighing something, deciding how much to let land.
She let it land.
A faint smile formed, small and real, and the last traces of the amplifier's glow faded completely from her skin, the markings disappearing until her expression was calm again. Softer than usual though. Just slightly.
"Good," she said, adjusting the stack of papers in her arms. "Then stop wasting time." She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and something shifted in it — a flicker of something lighter slipping through the composure. "We submit these first. And after that we go register for the tournament together." A small pause. "What do you say?"
Lucas's energy came back all at once. "Sounds like a plan."
They turned and walked down the corridor side by side, and the weight that had been sitting in the air between them since Kine's hand had come down on Lucas's neck — all of it had dissolved into something quieter and easier, the kind of comfortable that you don't announce because announcing it would ruin it.
*****
Far from that corridor, in a dimly lit room that smelled like old furniture and unspent anger, something shattered.
A glass hit the wall and exploded into pieces that scattered across the floor in every direction. Kine stood in the middle of it, chest heaving, rage written across his face in a way that had stopped being readable and was just noise now — hot and directionless and looking for somewhere to land.
"That girl," he said, his voice low and shaking. "That arrogant — she actually humiliated me—"
His fist came down on the table.
The wood cracked. Split. Another glass followed, then another, thrown without aim, just thrown, each one shattering on impact and adding to the mess spreading around his feet.
Ley stood against the wall with his arms folded and watched all of this with the expression of someone who is irritated and also slightly tired of being irritated. He let it run for a moment before he spoke.
"Calm down," he said. His tone was not particularly calm either.
Kine snapped toward him. "Easy for you to say." His voice came out sharp and bitter. "Nothing happened to you. You didn't stand there like a fool in front of everyone. You don't know what that felt like so don't act like you do."
Ley's jaw tightened. He pushed off the wall. "Oh I don't?" He stepped forward, something flaring behind his eyes. "I'm the one trying to keep your head straight right now. And what did you do? Walked straight in without thinking for a single second about who you were dealing with. Anyone paying attention could see she wasn't normal."
Kine let out a laugh that had no humor in it whatsoever. "What, lecturing me now?" He stepped closer, something darkening in his aura. "Careful, Ley. Keep talking like that and I might forget you're my brother."
Ley didn't step back. His smirk came back, colder than before. "Then try it," he said flatly. "Let's see if you've actually got the guts to back up your mouth."
"WHY ARE YOU TWO SHOUTING."
The voice came from the doorway and it did not need to be loud to stop both of them cold.
They turned at the same time.
A tall figure stood in the entrance, and the weight of his presence hit the room before he had taken a single step into it. Not loud. Not aggressive. Just heavy in the specific way that certain people are heavy — the kind that makes a room feel smaller without them doing anything at all.
Both of them straightened almost before they decided to.
"Brother Talon," Kine said.
Talon's eyes moved slowly across the room. The shattered glass. The cracked table. The general atmosphere of two people who had been about two seconds from doing something they couldn't take back. His expression didn't change much but it didn't need to.
"Explain," he said. One word.
Ley said nothing. He simply tilted his head slightly toward Kine.
Talon's gaze shifted. "Kine."
Kine's jaw worked for a second. Then he told it, all of it. The corridor, Lucas, Sylvia's interference, the lightning, the crowd, the way it had ended. When he finished his voice had the particular quality of someone whose pride is still bleeding.
Silence sat in the room for a moment.
Talon brought one hand to his chin. His eyes had gone somewhere distant, thinking. "A Silvercrest?" he said quietly, almost to himself. "That explains the confidence. That family doesn't raise weaklings. Also, a revenge against would be tough." His gaze shifted to Ley. "What did you see in her? Any opening?"
Ley's earlier irritation had settled into something more focused now, the calculation replacing the heat. "She's strong," he said, measured. "But not untouchable. The three of us, no holding back, no playing around." His eyes narrowed slightly. "We can bring her down."
A slow smile spread across Talon's face.
Not warm. Not friendly. The kind of smile that belongs on someone who has just heard exactly what they wanted to hear and is already three steps ahead of the conversation.
"Good," he said. He stepped forward into the room properly, and the space seemed to tighten around him. "Because I have a plan."
*****
By the time Lucas and Sylvia stepped out of the registration hall they both looked like they had survived something.
The queue had been long. The process had been unnecessarily complicated. The cadet at the front desk had asked the same question in three different ways and seemed surprised by the same answer all three times. The general atmosphere of the hall had been that specific exhausting energy of fifty people all trying to do the same administrative task simultaneously.
Lucas stretched his arms above his head, shoulders loosening. "Finally."
Sylvia walked beside him adjusting her sleeves, and even she, beneath the composed expression, looked marginally tired around the edges. "That line was unreasonable," she said, glancing back at the hall once. "But it's done."
"Nova and the others are probably at the lounge by now," Lucas said, his gaze drifting down the corridor. Then he turned to her with a small casual smile. "Hey, I just remembered I've got something to take care of real quick. You go ahead first. I'll catch up before you even notice I'm gone."
Sylvia looked at him for a brief second. "Alright," she said simply. "We'll be waiting."