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"Not relevant."

"It's extremely relevant."

"No." His answer is calm. Infuriatingly so. "If something interrupts Academy wards, it becomes my responsibility." He adds.

"Because you're a Chief Wings Officer?"

He looks up at me again. "Because forty students were assigned to me yesterday."

The bluntness silences me. Sky Wing. The nervous siren. The student with the injured shoulder. Selena's sleep. Every detail he collected and immediately began carrying. Rhyven looks toward the books. "If something can enter a Trial without the Academy seeing it, I need to know."

I hesitate. "It didn't enter."

His gaze doesn't leave me. "You don't know that."

"No."

"Neither do I."

For once, we are equally dissatisfied.

A few minutes later I tell him everything. Not quickly. Not dramatically. The faceless illusion that drew me from the path. My father's voice following me through the forest. The silent section. The bracelets failing. The cold sensation. Rhyven listens. Actually listens. He does not interrupt to correct details. Does not offer ordinary explanations before I finish.

When I'm done, Rhyven reaches for the maintenance volume near my elbow. He opens it to a diagram I had marked.

"These chains weren't built by location."

"What were they built by?"

"Function." He turns the book toward me. "Outer wards connect to interior anchors."

"Why?" I study the lines.

"So damage can be redistributed."

Six outer points feed into three inner circles. Those circles meet at one central mark beneath the oldest part of the Academy.

"What is that?" I ask.

"No label."

"There must be one."

"The page was altered."

I look more closely. He is right. A thin layer of parchment has been scraped away beneath the central symbol. Not old damage. Deliberate removal.

Rhyven taps the eastern point. "That's approximately where our ward sits." Then one of the inner circles.

"What is beneath the central mark?"

He looks at me. "I don't know."

I turn the page. A folded sheet slips from the back cover and falls onto the table. Rhyven catches it before it reaches the floor. He unfolds it. Not parchment. Thin ward-paper, reinforced with threads of silver. A map appears when his fingers touch it. The Academy. Older than the one displayed in the central halls. Several current towers do not exist. Other structures appear where courtyards now stand. A network of black lines spreads beneath the foundations.

"Those are ward channels," Rhyven says.

"How do you know?" I ask.