[Celestial Academy — Administrative Wing — 1:23 AM]

The report arrived while Agustín was still awake.

He was always awake at this hour.

Sixty‑four years of work had reconfigured his sleep into something that occurred in brief intervals between periods of actual productivity.

The body learned what the work required.

His escort entered without knocking — they had instructions not to knock when the information was urgent.

"The north building," the man said. "A group. They entered at 1:05 and left at 1:12."

"How many?"

"Five. Plus the tracker who stayed on the outer perimeter."

"Did you document them?"

"Yes, Father."

Agustín extended his hand.

The escort deposited the record — physical description of each figure, exact times, movements inside the building according to what he had been able to observe from the northeast angle of the courtyard.

Agustín read it.

Before reaching the second paragraph, he already knew.

"Carter."

It wasn’t a question. And he wasn’t truly surprised.

*I calculated it would happen. I just didn’t know when.*

"The suppressed level is consistent with a false identity," the escort continued. "But the movement pattern—"

"I know it." Agustín folded the record. "Did anyone else see them?"

"No."

"Cael?"

"The Inquisitor was in his quarters."

Agustín nodded.

"Good. Withdraw."

The escort left.

---

Agustín stood up.

He went to the window.

The Academy courtyard empty.

The old building visible from here — the dark stone, the small windows, the altar inside with what he had been detecting for two years without being able to fully catalogue.

Thirty years of work built on a single night.

Not thirty years of faith — of evidence.

*The first time I saw what a Fragment does to its bearer in full activation was in a southern city.*

A bearer with four years of exposure.

A level that the Temple’s records at the time had no instrument to measure correctly.

In twenty minutes of uncontrolled activation, the city lost three blocks.

*It wasn’t a deliberate attack. The bearer didn’t want that. He was a thirty‑eight‑year‑old man who had family in that city and would have given anything to stop what he was doing.*

The Fragment didn’t ask him what he wanted.

*I was twenty‑seven years old that night. I was the youngest Inquisitor to reach my level. I believed that there were situations that could be resolved with negotiation, with understanding, with the kind of nuanced solutions that older Inquisitors dismissed out of impatience.*

After that night, he never believed it again.

Thirty years.

Fourteen documented bearers in that advanced state. Fourteen outcomes that varied in scale but not in direction.

*Fragments corrupt. Corruption advances. The bearer loses control. People die.*

It wasn’t just fanaticism.

It was basic mathematics to him.

---

Carter had been with Fragment 1 for sixteen months.

And had already demonstrated Core Resonance at the Crystals.

Agustín had read Cael’s report three times. He knew it by heart. The destroyed valley. The energy readings. The scale of damage within a four‑kilometer radius.

*Even if he got rid of Matthias — who was a problem even for us, despite being an element faithful to his beliefs.*

Sixteen months.

The bearer from the southern city had taken four years to reach that level.

*Two possibilities. Either Fragment 1 is consuming him faster than documented in any previous case. Or he is integrating it in a way we have in no record.*

*In either case, the final outcome is the same.*

*It’s a matter of time.*

What Agustín didn’t understand — what he didn’t have in any record because no one had documented it — was why Carter remained functionally human at this level of exposure.

*Why the team remains a team instead of collateral damage. Why the companion, which in all documented cases of advanced bearers was an instrument of the Fragment and not an independent entity, remains Grim with Carter.*

That was the variable that didn’t fit.

The one he still didn’t know how to explain within his framework.

It didn’t change the conclusion.

It only made it more urgent.

---

He had ruled out immediate capture the moment his scouts confirmed that Carter had entered the Academy.

*Capture in an academic zone with students present — Magnus would have to respond institutionally. The Master Guild would use it as a political incident. The Abandoned Circle would have time to move.*

And most importantly: capture without context didn’t serve him.

*I don’t need to capture Carter. I need the world to understand why capturing him is necessary.*

He had spent thirty years building doctrine. Convincing the Temple, the kingdoms, the institutions.

But doctrine without visible evidence was just argument.

Carter in the Academy was an opportunity.

The most powerful documented Fragment bearer, with active corruption, in a space full of civilians.

*With the right stimulus — the Academy’s magical environment amplifying the Fragments’ pressure, the beasts I brought in the escort’s wagons applying the right pressure at the right moment — Carter will demonstrate exactly what I have been saying for thirty years he would demonstrate.*

*Not because I want him to lose control.*

*Because it is what will inevitably happen.*

*I am only choosing the moment and the audience.*

"Document everything." He had said it before. He repeated it now quietly to the empty space. "When he acts, I need the world to see it."

---

"Let them find what they are looking for."

A pause.

"And when they have it, we will show the whole world exactly why Fragments are what we have always said they are."

---

[Quarters Wing — Inquisitors — 1:45 AM]

Davan was waiting for Cael in the hallway.

Cael saw him before Davan spoke and knew the information was about Carter. Davan’s expression when he had information about Carter was specific.

"Father Agustín knows Carter is in the Academy."

Cael processed that.

"So?" he said.

Davan looked at him.

"We do nothing?"

Cael went to the hallway window — the old building visible from this angle, the dark stone under the moonlight.

"We are already doing something."

"What?"

"Waiting." Cael without taking his eyes off the building. "And seeing if Carter solves the problem before Agustín uses it."

Davan didn’t answer immediately.

The expression he had when something didn’t fit into his map of how the chain of command was supposed to work.

"Cael."

"What."

"Whose side are we on?"

Cael looked at him.

The direct question of someone who had spent months following instructions without fully understanding them and had reached the point where he needed to understand them to keep following them.

"The right one," said Cael.

"And which one is that?"

Cael returned to the window.

"When you know it without having to ask, you tell me."

Davan looked at him for a moment.

Then he left to the hallway.

Alone.

With the unanswered question.