"It wasn't me who took Sylvia."
Lucas said it fast and sharp and the lounge corner went silent in the specific way that happens when something genuinely wrong has just been said out loud.
Nova blinked. "What?"
"That wasn't me," Lucas said again, jaw tight. "Whoever came in here, whoever called her out and left with her — that wasn't me. I just walked through the east corridor. I haven't been in this lounge until right now."
Celia's expression moved through confusion, then doubt, then something slower and more unsettling. "So you're saying," she said carefully, "that someone came in here. Wearing your face. And walked out with Sylvia."
"Yes."
A beat of silence.
Gideon had already gone quiet in the way he went quiet when he was thinking fast. "Not just a disguise," he said, more to himself than anyone. "Something planned. Deliberate. They knew where we'd be, knew how Lucas acts well enough to sell it for thirty seconds." He looked up. "This wasn't improvised."
Lucas's fist hit the table.
The sound cut through the lounge loud enough that nearby cadets looked over. He didn't notice. His mind had already landed on the name he didn't want it to land on and it was sitting there now, heavy and certain.
'Talon. Of all times. Why now.'
He looked up at the three of them, and the panic in his chest had already compressed itself into something more useful. "We don't have time. We need to find her right now."
He turned to Celia first. "Go to the academy. Report this. Don't stop to explain it twice, just get someone with authority and tell them what happened."
Celia was already standing. The uncertainty was gone, replaced with the clean efficiency of someone who has been given a clear task and taken it seriously. "I'll go immediately," she said, and she was moving before she finished the sentence.
"Nova. Gideon. With me."
"Already here," Nova said, the usual grin completely absent, his voice carrying a quietness that was somehow more serious than anything loud would have been.
Gideon was already heading for the door. "Let's move."
The three of them hit the corridor at a run, and Lucas was three steps ahead when he stopped abruptly.
"Wait." He turned back to the other two. "Which direction did they go? Did you see?"
Gideon's jaw tightened. "Toward the exit. After that we didn't follow. We had no reason to."
Nova pressed a hand through his hair, frustration sharp on his face. "We should've paid more attention. That's on us."
"No." Lucas cut it off before it could go further. "Blaming ourselves does nothing right now. We split up." He looked between them quickly. "Gideon, east side. Nova, west. I'll take north."
Both of them nodded.
"Don't do anything reckless," Gideon said, firm and direct.
Nova's eyes were serious in a way Lucas didn't see often. "Find her first," he said. "That's all that matters."
Lucas was already running.
The corridor blurred past him, the sounds of the academy falling away as he pushed through a side door and out into the open grounds. The evening light was fading. The trees at the edge of the academy property sat dark and heavy in the distance.
'Please,' he thought, feet hitting the ground hard. 'Just be safe.'
*****
The blue lightning around Sylvia's hands was still humming when Talon finished speaking.
She looked at him. Then at Kine and Ley stepping out from the trees on either side, their smirks carrying all the confidence of people who have decided how this ends before it started.
She took all three of them in quietly. Their stances. Their positions. The way Talon held himself slightly back while the other two moved to flank, not aggressive yet, still performing, still enjoying the moment before the moment.
"Ironhart," she said quietly. Her eyes settled on Talon. "So you're another one of Lucas's brothers."
Talon's smirk widened like she'd said something pleasing. "Right on point, Miss Silvercrest. Sharp as advertised."
Sylvia looked at Kine briefly. Then Ley. Then back to Talon.
"What do you want," she said. Not a question. The kind of sentence that means get to it.
Talon let out a soft appreciative sound and tilted his head slightly toward Kine. "One of my brothers had his pride damaged earlier today," he said, voice carrying that specific smoothness of someone who has rehearsed casualness until it sounds natural. "He's not the type to let that sit. So we thought—" he spread his hands slightly, "—why not give him a proper chance to settle it."
Kine stepped forward just enough, eyes locked on her with the particular resentment of someone who has been replaying an embarrassment on a loop for hours.
The three of them waited for her reaction.
The lightning around Sylvia's hands flickered.
Then faded.
Her fingers relaxed at her sides. Her gaze dropped slightly, like the words had genuinely given her something to think about. A small breath left her.
"Is that so," she murmured.
And then she laughed.
Quiet. Unbothered. The kind of laugh that doesn't belong in a three-on-one standoff in a dark forest and somehow that made it worse.
Kine and Ley exchanged a glance, their confidence surging at what they read as something cracking in her composure. Talon's smirk stretched wider.
"I think you're misreading the situation, Miss Silvercrest," he said, amusement threading through each word. "Three against one, deep in the forest, away from the academy. If anything, you should be thinking about how to get out of this. Not laughing."
The laugh stopped.
"You fools."
All three of them went still.
Talon's smirk didn't disappear but something underneath it shifted — a small tightening, a recalibration, the expression of someone who expected a specific thing and is now receiving a different one. Kine's confidence faltered at the edges. Ley's eyes narrowed, instincts picking up on something his pride hadn't caught up to yet.
Sylvia lifted her head slowly.
BOOM.
The lightning didn't build or announce itself. It simply erupted — a violent surge bursting outward in every direction at once, blue currents tearing through the air like living things, cracking across the ground and scorching the earth around her feet in jagged lines. The shockwave hit all three of them as a wall of force and heat and raw electric pressure that had nothing restrained about it.
The trees around them swayed from the impact. Leaves tore loose and scattered. The air smelled like ozone and something burning.
When it settled, Sylvia stood in the center of it.
Her expression had not changed. The cold certainty in her eyes was the same as it had been a moment ago, like the lightning was simply an extension of a point she was making.
Her gaze moved across the three of them. Talon, Kine, Ley one at a time, unhurried, like she was reading something she already knew the ending of.
"Do you really believe," she said, her voice low and completely level, "that the three of you are enough to handle me?"