The celebration had finally ended.

By the time they left, the night had already deepened, and the streets that had felt so crowded a few hours earlier had thinned into something calmer. The city had not gone silent, but it had softened. Fewer voices. Fewer footsteps. More distance between one group and the next. The kind of hour when even lively places began to exhale.

Trafalgar walked with the others toward the station, but not quite beside them.

Xavier, Cynthia, and Bartholomew were a little farther ahead, their voices drifting back now and then in uneven fragments. Zafira had fallen into step next to him instead, close enough for quiet conversation without forcing it. The distance between them and the others was not large, only enough to make the moment feel separate.

For a while, neither of them said anything.

The city lights washed the street in warm color, catching on windows, stone, and passing railings. Somewhere far behind them, the music from the celebration still bled faintly into the night, dull now with distance.

Trafalgar was the one who spoke first.

"What do you think about going to Mariven Port in two weeks?" he asked. "There’s something I need to take care of first, but after that we can go."

Zafira turned her head slightly toward him, her expression unchanged, though there was a quiet kind of approval in it.

"Oh? Fine by me," she said. "Don’t worry about rushing it. I’ll use that time to go home first. My father wants to see me too."

Trafalgar let out the faintest breath that might have become a laugh.

"Malakar wants to see how much his daughter has grown?"

Zafira gave him a brief side glance. "Yes. My father worries about me. He always did the same with my brothers." A short pause followed. "At the turn of the year, we have to go see him."

"Hm."

Trafalgar’s hands stayed in his coat pockets as they walked.

"My father hasn’t said anything like that to me," he said. "He just told me to stay around the academy. I guess it makes sense after everything that’s happened."

"It does," Zafira replied. "Even if no one can just put a hand on you, that doesn’t mean wandering around carelessly would be wise."

Trafalgar tilted his head slightly.

"You think someone would actually try?"

He did not sound worried. If anything, he sounded curious.

"None of the Eight Great Families would do it," he went on. "That would be enough to start another war."

Zafira nodded once. "Exactly. And we just finished one." Her voice remained calm, but there was no softness in what she meant. "So no, it would be strange timing for a family to try anything right now."

"Besides," Trafalgar said, "with the rumors about someone from the Primordial bloodline being detected, attention has shifted toward that more than toward me." His gaze moved briefly toward the darker stretch of street ahead. "It hasn’t become public knowledge for everyone, but rumors spread faster than official truths ever do."

Zafira accepted that point immediately.

"That’s true," she said. "Barth, Cynthia, and plenty of others outside the great families can still hear about things like this. Especially inside the academy. One conversation between the wrong people, one careless comment from someone important, and after that it goes from mouth to mouth until half the city knows some distorted version of it."

Trafalgar gave a small nod.

That was one of the things he appreciated about speaking with Zafira. He did not need to explain the shape of the world before speaking about it. She already understood where things sat, who carried weight, what kind of rumor was dangerous, and which silence meant more than words. With Alfons, any conversation would rot before it even began. With Bartholomew... no, not yet.

He trusted Barth.

That was not the issue.

He simply did not want to drag him fully into that world before he had to be there. Not while the academy still gave them the illusion of distance from it. After graduation, that would be different. At that point, Trafalgar would have to ask him directly what he wanted to do with his future.

The thought rose more clearly after that.

’Now that I think about it... I should offer him a place beside me later.’

His pace did not change.

’He should stay close to me when the time comes. His class is going to be important.’

The idea stayed with him as they reached the station.

The train was quieter on the return trip. Even Xavier had lost some of his earlier noise by then, though not enough to stop speaking altogether. Bartholomew looked pleasantly exhausted now rather than uncomfortable, and Cynthia seemed content to let the night taper off without forcing it to remain lively. Zafira took her place beside Trafalgar again without comment, and the ride back to the academy passed under the soft rhythm of the tracks and the low hum of mana through the carriage walls.

When they finally stepped off at the academy station, the grounds were nearly empty.

That was natural at this hour. Lamps lit the paths in long amber stretches, and the main roads through the campus had taken on that almost dreamlike stillness they sometimes had late at night, when the academy looked less like a place full of students and more like a quiet city built for ghosts of discipline and ambition.

They walked together for a while after that.

Eventually, the group split by habit rather than discussion, everyone angling naturally toward the part of the grounds that belonged to them. Trafalgar ended up beside Zafira again since both of their rooms were on the same floor.

When they reached the dormitory entrance, they stopped.

"Goodnight," Zafira said.

"Goodnight."

There was nothing awkward in it. Nothing unfinished either. Just the quiet understanding of two people who would see each other again soon.

They went their separate ways inside the building, the corridor silent except for their footsteps and the faint hum of the circular lift when it rose past another level. Once he reached his room, Trafalgar stepped inside, closed the door, and let the night fall properly around him.

The silence in his quarters felt different from the silence outside.

He raised one hand.

A small black object materialized over his palm, smooth and dark, faint lines tracing across its surface like sleeping runes beneath stone.

The Shadowlink Echo.

Trafalgar infused it with mana.

The runes lit up softly, and the connection formed almost at once.

"Caelum," he said, voice steady in the stillness of the room. "I need to go see Darian tomorrow. And I need you with me."

The message left the item cleanly.

He did not have to wait long.

The Shadowlink Echo pulsed again with swift efficiency, and Trafalgar sent mana into it once more. Caelum’s voice came through the device a moment later, calm, direct, and exactly as disciplined as ever.

"Understood, Young Master. We will go tomorrow. I will meet you at the Gate Hub in Velkaris, and from there we will proceed together."

That was enough.

Trafalgar lowered the item slightly, the faint glow dimming across its surface.

Darian.

The message in the city had already made one thing obvious. Something had happened on his side, and whatever it was had been serious enough for him to move carefully and quickly. Trafalgar had wanted to see him anyway. Now the meeting had shifted from useful to necessary.

The plan with Zafira and Mariven Port would have to wait.

He closed his fingers around the Shadowlink Echo, and the item dissolved into faint particles of mana before disappearing completely. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Tomorrow, he would go to Darian.

And whatever had begun moving inside House Thal’zar, he would hear it from the man himself.