The sky was still dark and grey by the time they finished their rounds. Marcel's candle was out.

  "Same time tomorrow, Regnicus?"

  Ludere really wanted to say no. Every fiber of his being was saying no, but Marcel's father was an influential general inside of the military. If Marcel was like this after growing up with such a father? That left him with more questions than he had otherwise thought he would have.

  "Same time tomorrow."

  He wasn't in a position to refuse help. He also wasn't prepared for what happened next.

  "Alright. Now I've got something to look forward to!"

  "Are you going to go back to studying?"

  "I have to admit that yes, that was my plan."

  "You probably are going to need more sleep."

  "That sounds about right."

  "Are you going to sleep?" Ludere didn't need to glare. He knew that the man could read his intention through his Soul vision. Soul vision was terrible for seeing at night, but it did okay for a quick vibe check.

  "Ahhh, you got me there." The man was quite unserious.

  "Are we going to have a problem?"

  Ludere faced the man head on. He allowed his soul to flare up. It wouldn't be noticeable to anyone sleeping, but inside the barracks it would be like the sun had arrived to anyone with Will or Soul Magic.

  "No! Absolutely not, Regnicus."

  "Then you had better go to bed immediately and eat a proper breakfast tomorrow. This is war. You're going to need your sleep."

  By the time his own head hit the pillow, it struck Ludere that there might be a reason that the boy was studying so hard.

  "One of the girls was talking about it. Someone went missing from the fifth's."

  Ludere put his tray down. "Hell of a way to start off lunch, also, this is Marcel."

  Mila and Marcel exchanged a glance. "We're acquainted."

  Marcel places his tray next to Ludere's.

  "I've only just gotten recruited by the Regnicus. You have been living my dream for some time now. I never thought he would…"

  Mila placed her tray down audibly. It wasn't the loudest thing that he'd heard all day, but it was the most intentional..

  "Ludere. Have we talked about who we can and cannot bring into the circle of trust?"

  "He looked trustworthy, plus he… Went on patrol with me last night. We didn't find anything."

  Mila raised a knife. "You didn't find anything? The hope of the empire just skulking around at night picking up strays—no offense, Marcel—"

  "None taken."

  "—Doing the Fiddler's work? This doesn't make any sense."

  The meat was delicious and tempting, but he knew that if he started eating, she would ask him for a reason and he couldn't think of a good one. Wasn't that what people did to investigate things? Skulk around in the dark, looking for clues?

  "I'm sorry, I'm kind of at a loss here."

  "You shouldn't be recruiting. Welcome to the group, by the way. You shouldn't be running around on your own without a plan."

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  Marcel drank all of his water in one chug. "Why isn't he trying to recruit? It's the duty of every red-blooded man and woman to fight against demonic incursions."

  "He shouldn't be recruiting, because that is the fastest way to make enemies in the Senate and the military. Have one of their sons or daughters die in a badly thought-out scouting mission on his own home turf. My Regnicus would never do anything like that. That is too ridiculous."

  Mila gave a most mischievous smile. It was like she wanted to do something but he'd told himself that he trusted her. They'd been the only lower-class people in the academy for his entire time. Besides that, he'd grown to trust her.

  "Okay. So if I shouldn't be searching for these demons, how am I going to figure out how they infiltrate the academy?" Ludere whispered.

  "They're infiltrating? How do you know? Is this a vision from the Oracle?"

  Ludere realized that in that moment, he had a choice. He could use his girlfriend's official position to help him out. Was he the kind of man that did that?

  Yes. Yes he was. They were, after all, friends with benefits.

  "It was foreseen."

  It didn't matter who had the premonition, and he didn't feel the need to specify.

  Marcel gasped.

  Mila rolled her eyes. "There was, however, no specificity of who is actually going to die or what not. It's quite vague, almost like the person receiving the dream wasn't paying attention to it."

  "That's a bit rude to the process, don't you think?"

  "I don't really care about that. What I care about is not pissing off Cire's father. What I care about is not pissing off Marcel's father. And I think that if Marcel disappears while hunting demons, then the hammer is going to fall down on the Empire's hero."

  "That is a valid point ,actually. Marcel, how do you feel about dying for your empire?"

  Marcel looked like he wanted to stand and salute. "It would be my honor. I would like to kill as many of these demons as possible before that, though."

  Mila sighed. "Sit down. It would make sense if we could use whatever Skills you have to help us root out any demons. It's a thing that not only happens, but we have reason to believe that there's going to be a demonic incursion within the next two weeks. So anything you know about seeking demons out or finding them will be helpful."

  Marcel blinked several times and then drew out a small pad of paper. "If you both don't mind; indulge me, I have some ideas about how we could conduct this search more efficiently. It starts with getting more support from the populace on the ground. He told me that there was somebody missing. At least he told him and we don't know who it is. I think we should start there."

  "You think that we should start telling people to look out for things? I don't think that the average person here has the ability to find a demon, but if we all look together, that does kind of make sense. Marcel, that's very interesting. I didn't think about that. I guess we'd have to get some popular people to push this. Maybe all of the first-class people together?" Mila beamed.

  "If we can get our friend to talk to them, then maybe there are always some options there. That would be a start. What else can we do? We're swaying the elites' opinions," Ludere said.

  "Well, if we're actually hunting for demons, then we probably need a squad, at least four or five people. I understand that you might be able to beat a Legion on your own, Regnicus, but that is not the truth for all of us. We are all going to need some sort of backup. It's only a matter of time until they figure out a weak spot so they can make it in."

  "If Cire was here, then I would be telling her what she needs to know, but unfortunately she isn't. I can back-brief her what the plan is later on, if we don't see her soon. After all, you guys need to eat your food if you're going to be doing another late-night round together. I've got to drum up support from all the women here. Between the two of you, where you can get two classes in the pocket."

  In short order, they all agreed to spread the word. When they finished with that tidbit, the shocking thing to his mind was that he hadn't been doing this the whole time. If he could use all the other students at the island, to be a sort of early detection system for demons, that would kind of fit his needs. He wouldn't have to worry about watching his back. He was watching his back and each other's backs if he got the message out, and people actually understood it.

  That would be music to his ears, knowing really enough about demons—that one could kill them wasn't a normal Skill. Only some Legionnaires ever fought them and won. More often than not, it was the old monsters that saved the empire.

  Did he need them to know how to fight demons? It seemed like it might be a good use of his time. So that might be something he needed to teach his friends.

  The academy had little to say about it. It wasn't like they were offering a demon class. Even if they were, a lot he found out had been military information.

  It had been a good, close thing but no one would deny him that, at the very least. "All right, and I guess my idea of going through the deep stacks of the library for this is going to be back in focus."

  Cire walked in with her class. The normal slow lunchtime was mostly done. All of her classmates looked like they'd been through something. It was probably the Grammarian making them move with a purpose for once.

  Then he could see it.

  There were only fifteen of them.

  He had to count twice.

  "Mila, is the first class missing someone?"

  He paused to let her do her count.

  "There's only fifteen of them," Marcel whispered. "Rek."

  "Who's missing?"

  "Rek."