Dylan was sitting on the floor outside the door when Flint got back.Not leaning. Not slouched. Upright like he was prepared to wait as long as it took. He looked up when he heard footsteps and some of the tension left his face."I sent three messages." He said."I got the first one." Flint said, pulling the door open.Dylan got up and followed him in.Flint set the folders on the bed and Dylan looked at them without touching."Where did you get those.""Instructor Dane."Dylan went quiet. "Dane.""Yes.""He handed you evidence against his own headmaster.""His wife was from Vendriel." Flint said simply. He sat across from Dylan and spread the first folder open between them. "Look at the transfer dates. Then look at when the contamination reports started."Dylan leaned over the pages. He didn't speak for a while. His eyes moved slowly, the way they did when something was landing properly rather than just being processed."He cut off their protection first." Dylan said."Then declared

Flint moved before Caravan finished the warning.Not fast. Sudden movement would draw the broad man's eye even through the quiet standing. He stepped back from the edge of the rooftop slowly, one foot at a time, until the building's lip blocked his profile from the field below.Then he moved fast."Take us." He said under his breath.Not yet, Caravan said. Whoever is in that window has a read on this location now. If we teleport from here they track the exit point."Then we walk."Flint went down the side stairs and came out into the street behind the competition ground. Noise from the field carried over the wall. Voices. The kind that followed a result.He kept his head down and moved.The broad man was still on the other side of the wall. He could feel it. The pull of something that knew he was close without knowing exactly where. Like a compass with a loose needle.He turned right at the first corner and kept walking.I have lost the signal, Caravan said. We are clear.Flint slowed

The vice principal's name was Harrow.Flint knew it the way he knew the layout of the building. Present information he had never needed to use. The man existed at the edge of the academy the way permanent structures did. Grey at the temples. Quiet eyes that processed faster than they showed.He stood in the middle of the underground room and looked at the machine the same way Flint had. Long and deliberate. Like confirming something he had already known was there."You built a case." Flint said."Fourteen months." Harrow said. He did not look away from the machine. "I had the financial irregularities. I had the Vendriel mana reports. None of it constituted proof of deliberate harm." He turned. "The machine does.""How long have you known about it.""Three weeks." Harrow said. "One of my people found the entrance during a perimeter check. They documented everything inside and came directly to me.""And you did nothing for three weeks." Dylan said.Harrow looked at him. "I did everythin

The tribunal chamber was on the third floor of the administration building.Flint had walked past it dozens of times without giving it a second look. A plain door at the end of the east corridor, indistinguishable from the ones around it except for the lock. The kind of room that did not need to announce itself.He stood outside it now with Dylan on his left and the broad man a step behind Harrow.Nineteen minutes to the session."The three board members." Flint said quietly. "Tell me about them.""Solen." Harrow said, keeping his voice low. "He has been here thirty years. He does not like Kaelen and has never trusted him. He will vote with the evidence.""Cress." Harrow continued. "Kaelen's man. He votes the way the wind blows and the wind has been blowing Kaelen's direction for two years. Do not expect him.""And the third." Flint said.Harrow looked at the door. "Aldis. He came up through the northern border academies. He has worked hard to be uncontroversial. He votes with whoever

The portal to the Northern Highlands was different from the ones Flint had used before.Wider. Older. The frame was stone rather than metal and the edges had been worn smooth by years of use. It sat at the far end of the academy's east transit yard, separate from the student portals, with a single operator who checked clearance papers and said nothing else.Flint handed his over. The man looked at them. Then at Flint. Then at the papers again.He stamped them and stepped aside.---The Northern Highlands arrived cold.Not the cold of a room without heat or a night without cover. A different kind. The kind that came from the land itself, moving up through the soles of boots and settling in the chest before the lungs had finished their first breath.The sky above was wide and low and the colour of old stone.They were standing on a flat ridge overlooking a valley that stretched so far in both directions that each end disappeared into grey.Dylan pulled his collar up. "Nobody mentioned t