"Absolutely not," Stellan says, his voice shaking with emotion. "You're not sacrificing yourself for me. I won't allow it."
"It's not a sacrifice if it saves you," Ambrose argues, but his voice wavers. I can sense that he doesn't want to do this either. He's just planning for the worst because that's what he does, what he's always done. Prepare for every possible disaster and have a solution ready, no matter the cost to himself.
I stand up, letting my power bloom visible around me. The pink light fills the room, bright enough to push, their attention snapping to me.
"No one is sacrificing themselves," I say, putting every ounce of Praestes authority I have into the words. "We're going into this demonstration as six, and we're coming out as six. That's not negotiable. That's not up for debate. That's how this is going to work."
I push that certainty into each of them, letting my power carry the feeling through our connection. We've spent a week training, preparing, learning our true natures and how to harmonize our powers. We're not the scared rejected Magila we were two weeks ago. We're not the students who flinched every time an enforcer walked by. We're fundamental forces of nature, and we need to start acting like it.
"But we need a backup plan," Harlow says quietly, phasing between solid and translucent in that way he does when he's anxious. "Just in case things go sideways. Just in case they bring weapons we haven't planned for or pull some Council authority we can't counter."
He's right, and I hate it. I hate that we have to plan for failure when we should be confident in our success. But Harlow's death-sight has never steered us wrong, and if he's worried, we need to listen.
"There's something else," Harlow says quietly, his death-touched eyes distant. "Something my crystal vision showed me that I haven't told all of you yet."
We all turn to look at him, his reluctance and pain clear on his face.
"The attack at the pool four years ago. The one that killed me." His voice is rough. "Dmitri orchestrated it. He sent wraiths to target you specifically, Skye. The Praestes potential must have already been forming, even then. He wanted to eliminate the threat before it could grow."
My blood runs cold. "He tried to kill me? When I was a teenager?"
"I got in the way." Harlow's hand finds mine, cold fingers wrapping around my warm ones. "I saved you and died instead. And Death claimed me as Champion because of it." His laugh is bitter. "Dmitri's been trying to destroy us for years. He just didn't know it yet."
The room is silent as we process this. Another piece of Dmitri's corruption, another reason to fight.
"Fine," I concede, sitting back down and gesturing for Ambrose to put away the contract that would cost him too much. "Backup plans. But none of them involve anyone dying or losing their essence voluntarily. And none of them involve Ambrose giving up fifteen years of his life. Are we clear?"
Ambrose nods reluctantly, rolling up the parchment and tucking it back into his bag. His relief washes over me, tangled with lingering anxiety. He wanted that contract as a safety net, but he's glad we rejected it.
We spend the next two hours going through contingencies. If the hunters attack physically, Jade's demon strength combined with Rumi's divine power should be able to hold them off long enough for the rest of us to act. If they try to use essence suppressors, which are illegal but the Council has been known to use them anyway, Harlow can phase us into death realm temporarily. If they try to separate us, Ambrose has contracts that bind us together so completely they'd have to break natural law itself to pull us apart.
Rumi suggests having escape routes planned, and we map out three different paths through Grimrose that lead to weak points in the wards. Jade proposes that he could feed on the hunters' emotions to weaken them if needed, turn their confidence into doubt, their certainty into fear. Stellan offers to create walls of fire as barriers, not to hurt anyone but to control the space and limit their movements.
By the time the sun rises fully, casting orange and gold light through the frosted windows, we have seventeen different backup plans written down on Ambrose's parchment. Contingencies for physical attacks, essence manipulation, legal maneuvering, and everything in between.
And I still don't feel prepared.
"The students need to see us today," I say, checking the time and realizing that breakfast will be starting soon. "If we hide in here all day, they'll panic. They're already scared enough without us disappearing. We need to act like everything is under control, like we're confident and ready for whatever comes."
"Is anything under control?" Stellan asks, his voice small and vulnerable in a way that makes my protective instincts flare. His fire has dimmed, pulled tight inside him again, and his fear rising.
I pull him close, feeling his fire warm against my skin even through his attempts to suppress it. I can taste his fear, a thickemotion mixed with determination and a desperate need to not let anyone down. He's terrified that he'll fail, that he'll lose control during the demonstration, that he'll prove Dmitri right about phoenixes being too dangerous to exist.
"No," I admit honestly, because he deserves truth more than false comfort. "But we pretend anyway. We walk into that cafeteria with our heads high, we eat breakfast like we don't have a care in the world, and we show every student in Grimrose that we're not afraid."
"Even though we are afraid," Jade adds, choosing to be brutally honest.
"Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's acting despite the fear. And right now, those students need to see us being courageous."
Before we can move toward the door, Jade pulls Stellan into an alcove at the edge of the training room. I feel what he's doing before I see it, his hunger rising to drink in the anxiety that's been choking Stellan all morning.
"You're wound too tight," Jade murmurs, backing Stellan against the wall. "Let me help."
His mouth finds Stellan's neck, fangs grazing the pulse point as he feeds. Stellan gasps, his fire flaring warm enough that I feel the heat from across the room. Jade's tail wraps around Stellan's thigh, pulling him closer, and I watch his clawed hand slide under Stellan's shirt to trace patterns on heated skin.
"Jade," Stellan manages, his voice strained. "We don't have time—"
"I'm not doing anything that takes time." Jade bites down just hard enough to sting, pulling a wave of fire essence that he swallows with a groan of satisfaction. "I'm just taking the edge off so you don't combust before breakfast."
