The Nightward Keep sat on the edge of the Upper City like a jagged obsidian tooth waiting to bite the sky. It wasn’t just a fortress; it was a reminder that some people had power through knowledge, and the rest of us just lived in its ignorant shadow.

  I stood at the base of the main gate, trying not to make eye contact with the Two Witnesses. The statues were twenty feet of weeping marble, their eyeless faces turned toward the street as if they were waiting for someone to trip so they could laugh. They were creepy on a good day; tonight, with the smell of the Lyric Court’s ashes still clinging to my scarf, they felt like they were judging my very soul.

  “Here to report,” I said, stepping out of the shadows with a playful salute.

  Soren didn’t move. He was a silhouette against the moonlight, his presence as heavy and cold as the Keep’s walls.

  “When are you finally going to show me the inside of the Keep, Soren?” I continued, leaning back against a stone pillar. “I hear the view from the top is great for brooding.”

  Soren finally looked at me, his expression as stiff as the statues. “When you become an agent of the Afterword. Which is to say, approximately three days after the sun freezes over.”

  “Tough crowd,” I muttered, kicking at a loose pebble.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Soren said, and my stomach did a slow acrobatic flip.

  “You should join the Arcane College. You need to learn how to control that lightning ability. The Sky Wrath is going to kill you before I will if you keep being careless. Plus, I need a lead on that murder case. Every trail I find ends at the College gates. Investigate anything you find there.”

  I blinked. “The College? You want me to sit in a room with a bunch of trust-fund wizards? I’m a tailor’s assistant, not a scholar.”

  “I can’t keep protecting you from the red-eyed shadow suspect list, Eymire. It’s sniffing around too close for comfort. Besides, I have business in Aurelia—word of another uprising. I need you safe and useful while I’m gone.”

  My heart sank. “Safe? You’re sending me to a school for magic. And what about my work?”

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  “You actually to be a tailor?” Soren asked, his voice dripping with genuine, baffled surprise.

  “Ah… no,” I said quickly, feeling a weirdly defensive prickle. “But I just started working there a week ago! I’ve barely learned the difference between weave and weft.”

  Soren sighed, a long, weary sound that said he was done with the conversation. He rubbed the bridge of his nose like I was a headache that refused to leave.

  “Fine. I’ll talk to Oren,” I said, waving a hand dismissively as he turned back toward the Keep. “I’ll tell him you’ve recruited me for a special project of the College. Just try not to fry any professors on your first day.”

  Soren turned to leave, cloak already swirling like the conversation was over.

  I stood there for a second, the word still ringing in my ears like a bad joke.

  “Wait,” I said.

  He paused, one eyebrow raised in that deadpan way that made me want to punch statues.

  “You’re serious? You want me to put on a fancy robe and sit in lectures with a bunch of silk-blooded brats who’ve never had to move a crate in their lives? I just got a free room and a job that doesn’t involve people trying to kill me every five minutes. Now you’re telling me to throw that away because… what? You need eyes inside?”

  Soren didn’t even blink. “You need control over the Sky Wrath before it cooks you from the inside. And I need someone who can look at a crime scene without seeing it as ‘how heavy is the body.’ Two problems, one solution.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck, already tasting the memory-burn I’d pay if I jumped out of this conversation right now. Part of me wanted to tell him to shove the College up his obsidian ass and disappear back into the Warrens tonight. Powers were back. One big hop and I’d be gone.

  But the other part—the cold, ledger-keeping part—was already flipping pages.

  The College had the Academy Silver thread. It had the murder. It had answers about the shadow thing that kept trying to wear my face like a scarf. And most importantly… it had . Real power. The kind that made nobles kiss your boots instead of the other way around.

  I could play the wide-eyed gutter rat for a while. Let them teach me how to aim the lightning instead of just exploding like a cheap firework. Learn their secrets. Maybe even find a way to make the jump cost less than half my childhood memories every time.

  And if it all went to shit? Well… I’d already burned one fancy building this week. What’s one more?

  I let out a long breath, the kind that sounds like surrender but isn’t.

  “Fine,” I said, voice flat. “But I keep the tailor job as cover. Tell Oren I’m doing ‘night classes’ or whatever lie you spooks use. And if I smell even one lecture about ‘the proper moral use of magic,’ I’m walking out and you can explain to your bosses why your shiny new asset went missing.”

  Soren studied me for a long second, then gave the smallest nod I’d ever seen from him.

  “Smart,” he said. “Dangerous, but smart.”

  He disappeared into the dark before I could decide if that was a compliment or a threat.

  I stared at the Two Witnesses. One of them still looked like it was smirking.

  “Yeah, laugh it up,” I muttered, flipping the statue off as I turned to leave. “We’ll see who’s still standing when the term ends.”