[Southern Road — Travel Day 2 — 10:00 AM]

The Celestial Academy appeared sooner than Alex expected.

The towers visible above the tree line when the southern road made its final curve before the last stretch.

The Temple’s symbol carved into the central structure — visible from kilometers away, designed to be visible from kilometers away.

Alex stopped.

Just stopped.

The girls behind him stopped by reflex too, because when Alex stopped there was a reason.

They looked in the direction Alex was looking.

The towers.

The symbol.

The walls that Alex had seen his whole life from the inside and now saw from the outside for the second time — the first had been the night of his expulsion, when leaving had been the only move available.

No one said anything.

Emily put her hand on Alex’s arm.

Without words. Just there.

Alex looked at the towers for ten seconds.

Then he resumed walking.

---

Kira walked two steps behind Alex.

Without her ears.

Viktor’s enchantment active — her beastfolk ears invisible, her appearance completely human. [Predator’s Sense] functioning without interference.

Raven had looked at her that morning when they applied the enchantment.

"Weird," Raven had said.

"I know," Kira had said.

"Does it bother you?"

"It orients me differently." Kira. "The weight of my ears helps with balance. Without them, the wind feels different at that point." A pause. "I’ll get used to it."

Now she walked with her usual practicality.

But the team kept glancing slightly toward the space where her ears should have been and weren’t.

---

[Celestial Academy — Main Entrance — 11:30 AM]

The Academy’s gate was different from Imperial City’s.

Not taller or more elaborate. Different in what it communicated — not an entrance to a city but an entrance to an institution.

Two guards. Not from the Temple — from the Academy. Armor with the institution’s symbol, not the Temple’s.

But just as dangerous for them.

The first guard extended his hand.

"Documents."

The team handed them over in order.

The guard reviewed them one by one. Evaluating seals. Verifying dates. Comparing them against a list he had on the panel in front of him.

He stopped at Alex.

He read the document.

He looked at Alex.

Aura Suppression at its limit.

The guard looked at Alex for three seconds.

He went back to the document.

"Northern region."

"Yes."

"First time at the main Academy."

"Yes."

"Summoned companion?"

Alex hesitated for a second.

"I left him at outside accommodations. He has difficulty with enclosed spaces."

The guard made a note.

"Summoned companions must be registered even if they don’t reside at the Academy."

"I’ll register him tomorrow."

The guard looked at him for one more second.

Then he made a note.

He returned their documents.

"Welcome. Orientation for new exchange students is at four in the afternoon in the east wing."

They passed.

---

Inside.

The Academy’s hallways.

Alex recognized them before his mind had time to prepare to recognize them.

The specific smell. Institutional magic accumulated in stone and wood and the air of a place where hundreds of people practice every day for decades. Not the smell of a dungeon or a market. The smell of the Academy.

The sound — footsteps in hallways designed to be acoustically specific. Voices of students in groups. The background hum of permanent enchantments in the walls.

The same groups of students in the same formations. Different students, same dynamics — those who walked fast with a destination, those who stopped to discuss, those who looked at the ceiling searching for answers to questions they hadn’t yet formulated well.

Alex looked at all of it.

He recognized all of it.

And in the background — visible from the central hallway if you knew where to look — the oldest building.

Darker than the rest of the architecture. Not because it was in worse condition — because it predated the rest, built with stone from the region before the Academy’s architectural style was standardized. Smaller windows. More direct lines.

With the summoning room inside.

Alex felt F1 respond.

Not as an offer. Not as pressure.

As recognition.

*Here. It happened here.*

The same thing Grim had said the night before.

Alex extended Aura Suppression — not just over himself, but outward, covering the signature that F1 was radiating in response to the place.

The signature went out.

Fragment 1 kept recognizing.

Just silently.

---

Emily walked beside Alex.

She saw him look at the old building.

She saw him apply the extended Aura Suppression.

She didn’t say anything.

But she walked one step closer.

Raven on the other flank — evaluating the hallways, the entry and exit points, the Academy guards distributed in positions that someone with experience read for what they were.

Maya with the internal map Viktor had obtained — discreet, folded, comparing the visible architecture with the lines on the paper.

The boy looking at everything with the attention of someone who had never been in any educational institution and was processing what it meant to be in one.

---

[Lodging Wing — Cover Rooms — 12:30 PM]

The rooms were what any academy room was — functional, without personality, with the energy of a space that had had enough occupants to lose any trace of the previous ones.

The team distributed themselves.

Viktor had secured adjacent rooms — two shared, one individual for Alex that had the tactical advantage of being at the end of the hallway with a view of the old building.

Maya with the map unfolded on the bed as soon as the door closed.

"Four exit routes from the lodging wing." Pointing. "Two main ones with guards on a fixed schedule. Two secondary ones — this one and this one — without permanent guards according to Viktor’s records, but we can’t assume that’s still correct."

Kira evaluating the outside hallway from the window and speaking with Max over the communicator.

"The patrol pattern in the north wing changes at six in the evening. There’s a fifteen‑minute window where the corridor between this wing and the old building has no active coverage."

"How do you know that?" asked Max.

"I counted the patrols on the way from the entrance." Kira without taking her eyes off the window. "The rhythm is consistent."

Max processed that.

He looked at the computer screen in Viktor’s office where Viktor was analyzing the data the kids were sending.

"Should I count too?"

"If you want to be useful, yes."

He took out paper.

He started counting.

---

[Afternoon — Orientation for exchange students]

The east wing. Forty new students from different regions. An Academy instructor leading the orientation speech with efficiency.

The team distributed within the group — not together, not separate. The distance Viktor had recommended to avoid looking like a coordinated group.

Alex in the center.

Emily near the front where healers naturally positioned themselves.

Raven on the edge — evaluating.

Maya taking actual notes because Maya took notes on everything, and pretending not to would have been more conspicuous according to her own logic.

*She only said that to have an excuse to keep taking notes,* thought Raven.

The instructor: "The Academy has free access to most of its facilities for registered students. The exceptions are the historical archive — which requires specific permission — and the north building." Pause. "The north building is currently undergoing structural restoration, and access is restricted for safety reasons."

Alex looked straight ahead.

The north building.

The oldest building.

*Structural restoration.* That was what Magnus had told everyone.

"How long has the restoration been going on?" asked a student from the back.

The instructor: "Approximately two years. The Temple and the Academy’s administration are coordinating the process."

"Is the Temple involved in the restoration?"

"The building has significant history for both institutions." The instructor, with no further detail. "Questions about the process should be directed to the administration."

---

[Night — Alex’s room — 11:45 PM]

He couldn’t sleep.

Not because of the Fragments — because of the place.

The Academy at night was different from the Academy during the day in ways Alex had forgotten. The smell changed — less active magic, more of the substrate that magic left behind when practitioners rested. The sounds became clearer — footsteps in the hallway, the hum of permanent enchantments more audible without the daytime background noise.

And the old building visible from his window.

A light on the second floor — not internal. The reflection of something that existed inside and that the ancient stone didn’t fully contain.

Fragment 1 recognizing it from where Alex stood.

He got up.

He went out into the hallway.

---

Twenty meters away, coming in the opposite direction, a figure.

Temple armor without an Inquisitor’s insignia.

Dark hair pulled back.

Valeria Kane.

They both stopped simultaneously.

Valeria looked at him.

Her eyes processed — the different hair, the different clothes, the artificially suppressed level on the energy reading.

The way Alex moved.

His posture.

His eyes that even with Aura Suppression at its limit had something that didn’t match the level the documents claimed.

"I knew you would come back," said Valeria.

A pause.

"We need to talk."