The woods were quiet in that way that suggested bad decisions were being made.

  Luna marched ahead without explanation, boots crunching over leaves. Reid followed at her shoulder, expression unreadable. Behind them, Trey and Francis followed, less by choice and more by momentum, as the trees closed in.

  Trey broke the silence first.

  “I don’t recall committing a crime worth being murdered in the woods.”

  Reid replied without turning. “Relax. If we were planning to kill you, Francis wouldn’t be here either.”

  Trey frowned. “What I’m afraid of is that he’s in on this too.”

  Francis considered this seriously.

  “…Valid concern.”

  Luna shot them both a look. “Can you not?”

  “No promises,” Trey said cheerfully.

  The trees thinned, light breaking through the canopy as the lake came into view, still, glassy, deceptively calm. Luna stopped at the water’s edge, breath steadying. Reid stepped beside her.

  Francis’s humor faded immediately, eyes already scanning, assessing. Trey noticed the shift and straightened without realizing he had.

  Luna turned. “Reid and I— We think we figured out my medium.”

  The silence that followed was immediate and heavy.

  Francis looked between them. “You think?”

  Reid crossed her arms. “We suspect. With evidence.”

  Trey blinked. “Suspect what? And since when do you two get to test things without supervision?”

  Luna swallowed. “We think my medium is air.”

  The word hung there.

  Trey stared at her. Then laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not joking,” Luna said.

  Francis didn’t laugh. Instead, he tilted his head, eyes narrowing, not at Luna, but at the space around her.

  “What tests did you run?” He sighed and sat on a nearby rock.

  Reid answered without hesitation. “Projection above water. Dulling below it. Consistent force in open space. Failure when the medium displaced air.”

  Francis hummed quietly. “And you didn’t tell us.”

  Luna winced. “We wanted to be sure.”

  Francis exhaled. “Show me.”

  Luna did. She showed them what she had shown Reid before, Quanta shaped in open air, then beneath the lake’s surface. Francis watched closely the entire time, his attention fixed not on the weapon, but on the space around it.

  “…Interesting,” his breath caught. “…So the glow I saw during our tests back then wasn’t coming from the weapons.”

  He looked up, eyes sharp now. “It was the air around them.”

  Trey turned to him. “Are you confirming their hypothesis?”

  Francis didn’t look away. “The results strongly support it.”

  Trey frowned. “You’re telling me you didn’t notice Quanta traces in the air around her all this time?”

  Francis shot him a flat look. “I saw it. But in a school full of active users, background Quanta blends together. Without a reason to isolate her specifically, it registered as noise.”

  Trey hummed. “So it was there.”

  “Yes,” Francis said. “Just not distinct.”

  He turned back to Luna. “Can you push without the spear? Direct projection. Full force.”

  Luna nodded. She inhaled, and this time, she didn’t hold back.

  The power surged.

  Too fast.

  Too much.

  The air around her compressed, screamed, split. An invisible blade tore across the lake, snapping a row of trees on the far shore cleanly in half.

  Then pain detonated through her veins. Sharp, sudden, like glass under skin.

  Her breath stuttered as she tried to ignore it.

  And then—

  Nothing.

  The Quanta vanished.

  Cut clean. Sudden. Absolute.

  Luna gasped, staggering.

  Reid caught her arm. “What happened?”

  “I—” Luna pressed a hand to the side of her neck. “I felt pain.”

  Trey was at her instantly. “Where—let me see—”

  Francis’s brow furrowed sharply.

  “...Veinguard.”

  All three turned to him.

  “It cut her off,” he said, slowly. “Hard stop.”

  Trey swallowed. “Oh.”

  Francis said nothing for five full minutes.

  Because he had seen it.

  He’d seen Luna glow brighter than this before—far brighter—the day she’d exploded the bowl when she first arrived at Elkington. Before Veinguard.

  She’d been fine then. Safe.

  This time, her glow hadn’t even reached that level, and the system had shut her down immediately.

  “…Try again,” Francis said at last.

  Luna hesitated. Then nodded.

  She drew in. Pushed—

  Same result.

  Power surged. Pain. Cutoff. Silence.

  Francis didn’t speak right away. His gaze stayed fixed on Luna, questions stacking faster than he could dismantle them, but he pushed them aside.

  Whatever Veinguard was doing, that wasn’t the most urgent problem anymore.

  Finally, he spoke. “Reid. Any precedent?”

  Reid shook her head. “None. I looked.”

  He turned to Trey.

  “Trey.”

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  “Yeah?”

  His voice was grim now.

  “We have a serious problem.”

  The lake fell silent.

  Even the wind seemed to hesitate, ripples stalling against the shore as if the water itself were listening.

  “Say it, Reid,” Trey said, hand tightening on Luna’s shoulder as if anchoring her. “Whatever you’re thinking.”

  Reid straightened, posture sharpening.

  “Elderwatch,” she said flatly. “From what we heard, I think this is the kind of anomaly they watch for.”

  Trey turned toward her. “Define watch.”

  “You know,” Reid said carefully. “Sometimes, when we find our kind on a certain mission, we’re obligated to turn them over to Elderwatch, instead of bringing them here. People with power patterns that don’t fit established mediums. Anything that doesn’t behave the way it’s supposed to.”

  Luna swallowed. Her fingers curled into Trey’s sleeve.

  Trey shifted, his hand settling over hers, warm, steady.“Then why isn’t there a record of this?”

  Reid hesitated.

  “That’s the part I don’t like,” she admitted. “I searched. Old ledgers. Training summaries. Even redacted case notes. There are some unique patterns, but nothing that looks like this.”

  Francis looked up sharply. “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  “It means,” Reid cut in gently, “either no one like Luna has ever existed before…”

  She let the thought hang.

  “…or whatever happened to them didn’t make it into the archives.”

  The lake remained quiet.

  Trey exhaled through his teeth. “You’re saying the absence is the data.”

  Reid nodded once. “It’s a possibility. One we shouldn’t overlook.”

  “…So that’s it, then?” Luna's voice came out smaller than she intended. “Is this the part where I’m not supposed to be here anymore? Maybe I should just… leave? Run?”

  Trey’s head snapped toward her.

  “WHAT? NO.” He said immediately. Something in his chest dropped so hard it almost hurt. “You can’t.”

  Luna looked at him. “Why not?”

  Because the thought of you disappearing feels like someone ripping a rib out of my chest.

  His fingers tightened on her shoulder, trembling.

  But before Trey could answer, Francis stepped in, grim, steady, practical.

  “Because running would be the worst possible choice,” he said. “You’re enrolled. Evaluated. Your name is already in the system. Vanishing would draw far more attention than staying.”

  He paused, choosing his words carefully.

  “If you leave now, you’re shifting their attention directly at you.”

  Trey exhaled sharply and stared at him like he’d just been pulled from deep water. “Yeah. That. Exactly that.”

  Francis shot him a look, mouthing pathetic.

  Reid crossed her arms. “I say we hide it.”

  “Hide it? How?” Luna asked.

  The thought of being found tightened something in her chest. Not just watched, but taken. Removed.

  The idea of being cut off from them—from Pine Hollow, from Trey standing too close without thinking about it, hit harder than she expected.

  But the fact that no one was telling her to run yet felt like a thin, fragile relief.

  Francis studied her for a long moment.

  Not the spear.

  Not the tree.

  Her.

  “Keep using the spear,” Trey said before Francis could speak. “It already makes sense. No one questions force when it has something solid to travel through. Let everyone believe that’s your medium.”

  His jaw tightened. “And you stay close to us on missions. Fewer eyes. Fewer questions.”

  Luna looked between them. “And if someone asks?”

  “Play dumb,” Trey said easily. “Works for me daily.”

  Reid snorted despite herself.

  Francis finally spoke again, voice lower now. “No one here can see Quanta the way I can. To them, it will look… normal enough, nothing for Elderwatch to flag.”

  He didn’t say what lingered behind his thoughts.

  About the Veinguard that cut her off too early.

  About a safety system acting at a point that wasn’t dangerous.

  Not yet.

  “We proceed carefully,” Francis continued. “We observe. We gather information. Quietly.”

  Reid tilted her head, studying Luna. “You’re not broken,” she said. “You’re just… inconvenient to the system.”

  That earned a small, shaky smile from Luna.

  She looked down at the water. Then back at them.

  “…So I don’t run.”

  “No,” Trey said immediately.

  Francis shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  Reid smirked. “You’re stuck with us.”

  Luna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  The problem wasn’t gone.

  The answers weren’t here.

  But the ground beneath her felt a little less like it was about to vanish.

  They didn’t talk much about it in the days that followed.

  Whatever had surfaced by the lake didn’t vanish—it settled. Folded into something quieter, less sharp, but no less present. Luna went to classes, ate when reminded, trained when scheduled, and let routine do the work her thoughts refused to.

  What helped was knowing she wasn’t holding it alone.

  Reid kept watch without hovering. Francis checked in the way he always did—quiet, practical, pretending not to worry. And Trey…

  Trey had been managing her life better than she had since the day they met. Somehow, impossibly, he always found a way to make things work. Or at the very least, to stand in the middle of the mess and insist it wasn’t allowed to swallow her whole.

  Luna trusted that.

  By the time she followed him through familiar corridors toward the mission hall, the fear had dulled into something manageable.

  Not gone.

  Just contained.

  Everything was almost normal.

  The mission hall greeted them with the scent of ink, old parchment, and dust baked into stone.

  Trey slowed automatically, eyes scanning categories with practiced ease. Luna stayed close, reading over his shoulder.

  Then she grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him toward the other end of the board.

  “Let’s do this one,” she said, tapping a cluster of slips beneath a bold E. “The easiest mission. I want a break from combat missions.”

  Trey followed her gaze, then frowned.

  “…You’re wrong.”

  She shot him a look. “Excuse me?”

  “I know you want a break,” he said. “What I meant is that E-rank isn't the easiest.”

  Luna stared at the letter. “It comes after D.”

  “Yes,” Trey said patiently. “Alphabetically. Not functionally.”

  “That’s not how letters work.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s how this works.”

  He pointed higher up the board. “D is the easiest. Then C. Then B. Then A. Those are standard mission tiers.”

  “And E?” Luna asked, already suspicious.

  “E stands for Elderwatch-rank,” Trey said. “Different rank entirely. Usually involves supernatural occurrences. Irregular Quanta patterns. Special situations.”

  Luna’s mouth opened. Then closed.

  “…Oh.”

  “And SE,” Trey added, “is Special Elderwatch. Hardest tier there is. Starshade barely lets those pass down to us.”

  She looked back at the E slips, then slowly moved her hand away.

  “I didn’t know that,” she muttered.

  Trey glanced at her. “Then pay attention when I explain things.”

  She turned on him. “Then say less nonsense so I can focus.”

  For a moment, he just stared at her.

  Then he smiled, small, amused, entirely unbothered.

  “Fine,” he said. “Come on.”

  He scanned the board again, eyes moving faster now, more deliberate. After a moment, he plucked a slip free and handed it to her.

  “Here. Relics retrieval,” he said. “Ancient village. Cliffside. Mostly just go in and grab something. Doesn’t look like much sparring. Three thousand florets. Each.”

  Luna blinked. “Each?”

  “Mm.”

  She looked back at the slip, then up at him. “Can we go on this?”

  Trey nodded. “Yeah.”

  Luna read it, nodding. Then frowned.

  “Why does it say requirement: at least two Quanta wielders and two Quanta channelers?”

  Trey shrugged. “Because whoever’s paying is probably one of us. Knows what kind of people to ask for.”

  She looked up. “What’s a Quanta wielder and a channeler?”

  He stared at her.

  “You did not pay attention in class at all, did ya?”

  Luna scratched the back of her head.

  “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m telling Ermin.”

  “Trey.”

  He sighed theatrically. “They are branches. You choose based on specialization. Wielders focus on combat, like me, Reid, and Blake. Channelers use Quanta primarily for support.”

  “Like Francis?” Luna said, recalling Francis not being able to fight properly.

  “And my mom,” Trey added. “And the Elm Ridge healers.”

  Luna frowned. “No one ever told me to choose anything.”

  “That’s because you’re still a rookie,” he said easily. “Train harder. Ermin’ll tell you when it’s time.”

  She looked back at the slip. “So we can’t do this yet. I’m not qualified.”

  Trey tapped the parchment. “Read it again.”

  “…At least two?” Luna read.

  “Exactly,” he grinned. “Seriously. Pay attention.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “We can do this if you want,” Trey continued. “Form a team. Me, Reid, Francis. You tag along.”

  Luna hesitated. “What about the other Quanta channeler?”

  Trey didn’t answer right away.

  He just grinned.