Grace was sad, but she was not broken. The rejected letter sat on her desk like a lead weight, but Grace had spent her life turning weights into muscles. If the front door of the Sanctum was closed, she would find a window; if there were no windows, she would kick down a wall.

  Two days after the birthday incident, Grace marched into Silas’s office. It had been a while since she had truly pestered him—her injury and recovery had made her uncharacteristically quiet—but the "Hurricane" was back at full category strength. She slammed her hands onto his desk, her violet eyes burning.

  "I want to go to the Sanctum," she stated, devoid of any greeting.

  Silas didn't even look up from his tactical ledger. "No."

  "Commander, listen—"

  "I am listening to a child ask for the impossible," Silas interrupted, finally meeting her gaze. "The Sanctum isn't just a school, Grace. It’s a sovereign sanctuary. The 'exploration' visits they allowed years ago were a facade—a controlled performance to satisfy the Council’s optics while protecting the healers' privacy. The actual coordinates of the Sanctum are classified. Even the mail delivery is handled through encrypted drop-points, which is why your letter came back through a high-security courier. Even if I knew exactly where it was, I couldn't just drop you at the gates. They wouldn't let you in, and they’d likely strip me of my rank for trying."

  Grace didn't flinch. "Then go with me. Make up a fake reason. Say you need to consult with Sophia about the Red-Eye poison. Say you’re worried about my leg’s long-term Luma-flow. Just get me through the door."

  Silas stared at her, genuinely wondering where these outrageous ideas came from. He leaned back, exhaling a long, weary breath. He really wanted to see the clockwork inside her head—to understand how she could be so tactically brilliant in a fight and so utterly lawless in her social life. "Focus on your practice, Grace. The next League is not far, and you’re still trailing behind Valin’s new resonance speeds. Get out."

  He didn't wait for her rebuttal. He called Harkan in, put him in charge of the daily drills, and prepared his own transport. He had two reasons to leave. Reason one: he needed to be at the Great Hall in two days for the Detectors' first official progress report. Reason two: he desperately needed peace. He knew that if he stayed at the Forge for one more hour, Grace’s pestering would eventually wear him down, and he’d find himself being kicked out of the Sanctum alongside her by a very angry Sophia.

  With the Commander gone, the atmosphere at the Forge shifted from high-tension to high-drama. Sasha had developed a sudden, localized obsession. She had fallen for a medical intern named Shilly—a woman in her late twenties with a sharp wit and a habit of scolding recruits for their recklessness.

  "It’s impossible, Sasha," Grace said as they walked toward the infirmary. "Reason one: she’s a nurse. Reason two: she’s practically an instructor to us. She’s at least ten years older than you."

  "I’m not going to be a student forever," Sasha shot back, her chin held high. She was seventeen now, taller and sharper, though her maturity was still a work in progress. Before Grace could list reason three through ten, Sasha shoved a piece of gourmet cake into Grace’s hand.

  "Are you bribing me?" Grace asked, looking at the frosting.

  Sasha snatched it back before Grace could take a bite. "It’s for Shilly. And you are delivering it. Miss Shilly kicked me out of the wing after my third 'accidental' finger-sprain this week. She said if she sees my face again today, she’ll report me to Harkan for malingering."

  Grace groaned but eventually gave in to Sasha’s pathetic puppy-dog eyes. Sasha and Rose trailed behind her like spies, ducking behind pillars as Grace approached the private breakroom of the medical wing.

  Grace pushed the door open, intending to drop the cake and flee, but she froze. The scene inside was both heartbreaking for Sasha’s prospects and unexpectedly amusing. Miss Shilly wasn't alone. She was sitting comfortably on Instructor Vina’s lap. Vina was whispering something into Shilly's ear, a teasing smirk on her face, while Shilly was playfully feeding Vina a grape with her mouth.

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  Grace’s internal alarm went off. Not good. Back away. Retain your dignity. She tried to retreat, but the impatient Sasha rushed in behind her to see what the hold-up was. Rose followed, catching the full intimate display. Sasha turned into a literal walking zombie, her heart visibly shattering, while Rose couldn't help but let out a muffled chuckle at the sheer awkwardness of it.

  Grace grabbed both of them by their collars and hauled them out into the hallway before they could be spotted.

  "Did you hear something?" Vina asked inside, her eyes darting to the door.

  "Must’ve been the wind," Shilly murmured, pulling Vina back into the conversation.

  The walk back to the canteen was a study in human emotion. Rose was doubled over, unable to stop laughing. Grace was chuckling despite herself, the absurdity of the situation momentarily clearing the gloom of Mable’s rejection. Sasha, however, was a shell of a human being, staring blankly at the floor as if she had just witnessed the end of the world.

  When they reached the canteen, Grace sat down first. She looked at the shell-shocked Sasha and patted her own lap, mimicking Miss Shilly’s position. "Come on, Sash. I’ll be your Vina."

  "You're all so mean," Sasha yelled, though she finally slumped into her chair and began aggressively eating a bowl of stew. Within minutes, her dramatic streak took over. "I wasn't even that serious! It was just a crush!"

  "Right," Grace teased, leaning over the table. "That’s why you were sleep-talking about 'Nurse Shilly' and 'healing your broken heart' last night."

  The table erupted in laughter. Rose grabbed her girlfriend Cindy, who had just joined them, and started exaggeratedly acting out a mouth-feeding scene, making Sasha howl in protest. For a moment, they were just teenagers again, shielded from the brewing storm by the simple, messy walls of the Forge.

  Two days later, the sterile silence of the Great Hall returned. Archon InfraSound stood before the Council, her black armor reflecting the cold light of the overhead filaments. Silas and Kael sat to the side, their eyes fixed on the holographic displays.

  InfraSound activated a map of the city’s industrial sector. "Our initial hypothesis was internal," she began, her voice a resonant bass. "We believed the equipment required to broadcast such a sophisticated Red-Eye signal could only be sourced from the Council’s private armories. We followed the Luma-traces back to an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the Central City."

  She paused, her expression grim. "We found the equipment. It was high-grade, Council-spec broadcasting hardware. But the factory was a tomb. There was no one there. Not a single fingerprint, no hair follicles, no biological data. It had been wiped with a professional-grade Luma-scour. It’s as if the perpetrators never existed."

  "It’s happening again," Glacio said, his voice cutting through the room like a blade. "Five years have passed since the disaster at Heaven Heights. We couldn't find a single trace of Niamh or the core of that insurgency, and now we are facing a ghost who uses our own hardware against us."

  Silas felt a chill go down his spine. He thought of Grace in the medical wing, her leg scarred by a poison they still didn't fully understand.

  "They aren't just ghosts," Silas said, standing up. "They’re practitioners. They know our protocols, they know our hardware, and they know our children. If they’re using Council-spec equipment, then the call is coming from inside the house."

  The heavy doors of the Great Hall closed with a thud that echoed Silas’s mounting frustration. Before the Commanders could depart, Archon InfraSound stepped into their path, her matte-black armor pulsing with a rhythmic, low-frequency hum.

  "A correction to the record," she stated, her voice cutting through the lingering political chatter. "Our deeper analysis of the hardware found in the factory suggests it was not original Council-spec. They were high-fidelity replicas, designed to mimic our signatures. More importantly, the signal wasn't just data—it was embedded with a frequency designed for cognitive hijacking. Forbidden mind-control tech."

  Silas narrowed his eyes. "None of the Council members or the Archons possess mind-control as a primary Luma-trait. It’s a myth—a power from the Old World that was supposed to be extinct."

  "Precisely," InfraSound replied. "There is no known practitioner of mental manipulation in today’s records. Whoever is behind this is using technology to bridge the gap between Luma and the subconscious. It is a ghost in the machine, and until we find the architect, we are all vulnerable. The search continues."

  Sophia looked at the map, her mind drifting to the daughter she hadn't seen in years. The world was fracturing, and the "Detectors" had only succeeded in finding the size of the void they were up against. The Red-Eye wasn't a monster—it was a message. And the messenger was someone who knew exactly how to stay in the shadows.