“Who taught you to repair a failed skill?”
Professor Voss asked the question softly.
Somehow, that made it worse.
In Rowan’s limited experience, dangerous questions were supposed to arrive with raised voices, slammed doors, and people reaching for weapons. Voss did none of those things. He simply stood in the broken training yard, coat snapping in the sea wind, eyes fixed on the silver-gray marks fading across Rowan’s palm.
Behind him, the two split training stones smoked quietly.
Rowan pulled the bandage back over his hand.
“No one,” he said.
Voss’s expression didn't change.
“Try again.”
“No one taught me.”
“That isn't the same answer.”
Rowan swallowed.
The Archive icon pulsed in the corner of his vision like a patient heartbeat.
He didn't open it.
Not here. Not in front of a man who looked far too familiar with what he was seeing.
“I don’t know how I did it,” Rowan said.
“Yet you named the skill.”
“I saw the name.”
“Where?”
Rowan hesitated.
Voss watched the hesitation land.
“Vale,” he said, “I am asking gently because I'd prefer not to frighten you into stupidity. But don't mistake gently for casually.”
The wind moved between them.
Somewhere beyond the yard, a bell rang from the main building. Students crossed distant corridors. Grayhall continued being Grayhall, apparently unconcerned that Rowan’s life had just become even more complicated.
Rowan flexed his fingers beneath the bandage.
Pain sparked up his wrist.
“What happens if I answer wrong?” he asked.
Voss gave a humorless smile. “That depends on who hears you.”
“You heard me.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to report me?”
“Do you want the comforting lie or the useful answer?”
“Useful.”
“Good. Comfort is usually overpriced.” Voss tucked his notebook under one arm. “If I report exactly what I suspect, three officials from the Royal Skill Registrar arrive within forty-eight hours. They ask polite questions in front of witnesses. Then they take you to a capital facility for evaluation.”
“Evaluation.”
“They will use a cleaner word.”
“What happens there?”
Voss looked at the smoking hole in the fence.
“Historically, people who enter Registrar facilities as anomalies don't reenter society as people.”
Rowan’s mouth dried.
The Archive icon pulsed again.
This time, it felt less like an invitation and more like a warning.
“I’m not an anomaly,” Rowan said.
“No. Of course not. You're a zero-rank student who burned through reinforced training stone with a skill that official records say should have been deleted.”
“That sounds worse when you say it.”
“It sounded bad before I said it.”
Rowan looked toward the gate where the rest of group seven had disappeared. “Did they hear?”
“Enough to gossip. Not enough to understand.”
“Mira might.”
“Mira understands more than is healthy for her.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“This is Grayhall. Reassurance is rationed.”
Despite himself, Rowan almost smiled.
Almost.
Voss stepped closer and lowered his voice further.
“You won't demonstrate that skill without my supervision.”
Rowan stiffened. “You can’t just—”
“I can. I am. You will also not discuss failed skill repair, hidden interfaces, unusual system messages, black windows, silver text, deleted formations, or anything else that sounds like it belongs in a forbidden research trial.”
Rowan went still.
Black windows.
Silver text.
Voss saw his reaction.
The instructor’s face tightened.
“So,” Voss said. “There is a window.”
Rowan said nothing.
That answered him well enough.
Voss turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose.
For the first time since Rowan had met him, the professor looked genuinely tired.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Why would the day stop at property damage?”
“You’ve seen it before.”
Voss’s hand dropped.
Not quickly.
Carefully.
“What makes you say that?”
“You named things I didn’t.”
Voss looked back at him.
The wind carried salt across the yard.
“I have seen fragments,” the professor said at last. “Not yours. Not exactly.”
“Where?”
“Places I shouldn't have been.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It's the safest one.”
Rowan hated how familiar that sounded.
Maybe every adult with secrets took lessons from the same manual.
Voss walked to the broken training stone and crouched. He touched the burned channel again, then held his fingers near his nose.
“Compressed heat. Poor efficiency. Excellent penetration. Terrible stability.” He glanced back. “You selected the dangerous repair first.”
“Second.”
Voss stared.
Rowan added, “There was a worse one.”
“That doesn't improve my opinion.”
“I didn’t pick it.”
“Your restraint honors us all.”
Voss stood.
“Listen carefully, Vale. Failed skills are deleted for three reasons. First, most are useless. Second, some are dangerous. Third, and most important, deleted things can't contradict official records.”
Rowan frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means if the system says a skill failed, the world accepts that it failed. If the system says a student is zero-rank, the student becomes zero-rank. If the system says a formation never existed, no academy, guild, noble house, or ministry has to explain why it was broken in the first place.”
The words took their time sinking in.
Rowan thought of the Archive.
Defects Identified: 7.
Specific defects.
Specific reasons.
Not empty.
Broken.
“You think failed skills aren't accidents,” Rowan said.
“I think some are accidents.”
“And the others?”
Voss’s eyes hardened.
“The others are inconvenient.”
A chill passed through Rowan that had nothing to do with the sea wind.
Before he could ask more, Voss held up a hand.
“No. That's enough for today.”
“It’s not enough for me.”
“You are sixteen, exhausted, injured, and standing beside two destroyed training stones while wearing a bandage over unauthorized magical markings. Your hunger for answers is noted and denied.”
Rowan opened his mouth.
Voss pointed at him.
“Denied.”
Rowan closed it.
“Good. Now we will construct a boring lie.”
“A what?”
“A boring lie. The best kind.” Voss pulled a pencil from his coat and opened his notebook. “Your official practical assessment result will state that you demonstrated an unstable ignition residual with high penetration potential, pending classification. Not failed skill repair. Not impossible Archive nonsense. Not anything that causes officials with clean gloves to appear.”
“Pending classification sounds suspicious.”
“Everything at Grayhall sounds suspicious. That's our camouflage.”
Rowan couldn't argue with that.
Voss scribbled several lines.
“What about the class?” Rowan asked.
“They saw a zero-rank student produce a strange spark. By dinner, half of them will believe you made a deal with a cellar demon. By morning, someone else will sneeze lightning and you will become less interesting.”
“That happens?”
“Usually on Thursdays.”
Today was Tuesday.
Rowan decided not to ask.
Voss tore a small slip from his notebook and handed it to him.
“Take this to the infirmary. Have your hand treated.”
Rowan looked at the paper.
It read:
Student requires burn treatment. No probing questions. — Voss
“That will work?”
“With Nurse Pell? No. But it may reduce the number of probing questions by one.”
Rowan tucked the note into his pocket.
He hesitated.
“Professor.”
Voss was already examining the fence damage. “What?”
“If I can repair failed skills…”
“If,” Voss said sharply.
Rowan ignored the correction. “Could I repair other people’s skills?”
The question changed the weight of the air.
Voss turned slowly.
“No.”
“You answered too fast.”
“Because some answers improve with speed.”
“But is it possible?”
“Many things are possible. Most are punishable.”
“That isn’t no.”
“No, it's worse than no. No is a door. This is a cliff with fog around it.”
Rowan thought of group seven.
Mira moving like lightning and crashing into stone because her skill couldn't stop.
The scaled boy producing heat and cold at once.
The gloved student whose animated stone tried to crawl away.
Broken things. Not useless. Broken.
Voss saw the thought form.
His expression darkened.
“Vale.”
Rowan looked at him.
“You won't experiment on other students.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were already halfway to justifying it.”
Rowan flushed.
Voss stepped closer.
“Power that fixes people can become power that owns them. Remember that before you start calling your curiosity kindness.”
The words hit harder than Rowan expected.
He looked away.
“I just thought maybe I could help.”
“I know.” Voss’s voice softened, barely. “That's often how the worst research proposals begin.”
Silence stretched.
Then the professor sighed.
“Go to the infirmary.”
Rowan nodded.
He started toward the yard exit.
“Vale.”
He stopped.
Voss stood beside the ruined stones, coat whipping around him, face unreadable again.
“If the window speaks to you, don't assume it's on your side.”
Rowan’s hand went cold beneath the bandage.
He hadn't thought of the Archive as something with sides.
Tools didn't have sides.
Systems didn't have sides.
But black windows that interrupted deletion and saved impossible skills perhaps did.
“What side is it on?” Rowan asked.
Voss looked toward the main building.
“Deleted things usually want to be remembered.”
The infirmary was on the second floor of the west wing, behind a door marked with three separate warning signs.
KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING
DO NOT KNOCK IF BLEEDING SEVERELY
IF THE INJURY IS TALKING, WAIT OUTSIDE
Rowan knocked.
Then wondered whether magical burns counted as severe.
Before he could decide, the door opened.
A woman with cropped white hair and a severe face looked him up and down. She wore a healer’s apron over a military-style uniform and had the posture of someone who had once shouted people back to life out of annoyance.
“Nurse Pell?” Rowan asked.
“No, I'm the ghost haunting the infirmary. Come in before you drip anxiety in the hall.”
Rowan entered.
The infirmary smelled of antiseptic, herbs, and burned sugar. Three beds lined one wall. A student slept in the farthest one with a green bubble around his head. Another sat on a stool while a floating bandage wrapped itself around his ankle.
Nurse Pell took Voss’s note.
Read it.
Snorted.
“No probing questions,” she said. “How optimistic.”
Rowan offered his hand.
She unwrapped the bandage.
Her eyebrows rose.
“That isn't a normal burn.”
“No.”
“Did Voss tell you to say that?”
“No.”
“Good. Saves time.”
She prodded his palm with a metal tool.
Pain shot up Rowan’s arm.
He hissed.
“Mana channel scorching,” she said. “Minor nerve stress. Patterned backlash. Skill-related?”
“Yes.”
“Officially classified?”
“Pending.”
She looked at him over the rim of her spectacles. “Everything interesting is pending.”
Rowan said nothing.
Nurse Pell applied a cool blue salve that sank into the skin with immediate relief. The silver-gray lines dimmed but didn't vanish.
Her gaze lingered on them.
Then she wrapped his hand with clean cloth.
“Do not use the skill for twenty-four hours.”
Rowan nodded.
“I mean it.”
“I nodded sincerely.”
“You nodded like a student who plans to disappoint me.”
“I just got here.”
“Grayhall works quickly.”
The student on the stool laughed.
Nurse Pell pointed at him without looking. “Your ankle is one bad joke from being healed crooked.”
He stopped laughing.
Rowan left with two extra rolls of bandage and strict instructions to avoid “heroic idiocy,” which seemed unfairly specific.
By the time he returned to Dormitory C, evening had settled over Grayhall.
His roommates were there.
Bren, the horned boy who had met him at the gate, lounged upside down on one bed reading a book titled Practical Curses for Defensive Use.
The scaled boy from training sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully breathing steam into a kettle while frost formed around his elbows.
A third student, thin and pale with ink-black fingertips, looked up from arranging tiny paper birds across his desk.
All three stared at Rowan.
Bren spoke first.
“So.”
Rowan set his bag on his bed. “So?”
“You broke two training stones.”
“Apparently.”
“On your first day.”
“Yes.”
The scaled boy lifted the kettle. “Tea?”
Rowan blinked. “What?”
“Tea,” the boy repeated. “I’m Jory. My skill ruins water in two directions, but sometimes tea survives.”
“No, thank you.”
“Wise.”
The pale student’s paper birds turned their heads toward Rowan.
“I’m Nox,” he said. “I heard you’re zero-rank.”
Rowan sighed. “Is that going to be every conversation?”
“For a while,” Bren said. “Then someone will get possessed by an exam rubric and we’ll move on.”
Rowan sat on his bed.
His body felt suddenly heavy.
Jory poured tea into a cup. It froze halfway.
He sighed.
Nox’s paper birds fluttered closer to Rowan.
“Did it hurt?” Nox asked.
“Being zero-rank?”
“Breaking the stones.”
Rowan looked at his bandaged hand.
“Yes.”
Nox nodded as if that answered something important.
Bren flipped a page in his book. “Mira is telling everyone you shot a murder spark.”
“A what?”
“Murder spark. Her words.”
Rowan closed his eyes.
Good.
Great.
Boring lie already dying.
A knock came at the open door.
Mira leaned against the frame with one arm in a sling and a bruise darkening her jaw.
“Your spark needs branding work,” she said. “Murder spark is memorable, but not elegant.”
Rowan opened his eyes. “Please don’t call it that.”
“Too late.”
Bren waved lazily. “Ash.”
“Bren.”
Jory lifted his half-frozen tea. “Tea?”
“No one wants your tea,” Mira said.
“Someone might.”
“No one has.”
Jory looked at Rowan. “New people bring hope.”
Rowan almost smiled.
Mira entered without invitation and sat at the foot of his bed.
Rowan immediately shifted his injured hand away.
She noticed.
Of course she did.
“You’re hiding something,” she said.
“I’m new. Maybe I’m just mysterious.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
“You’ve known me for six hours.”
“And you’ve been a terrible liar for all of them.”
Bren turned a page. “She’s usually right. It’s annoying.”
Mira leaned closer.
“What did Voss ask you after we left?”
Rowan kept his face blank. “How I burned the stones.”
“And?”
“And I said I didn’t know.”
“Terrible liar,” she repeated.
Rowan looked at the others.
Bren appeared absorbed in his book, which meant he was definitely listening. Jory was trying to thaw his tea with one finger. Nox’s paper birds had gathered in a neat line facing Rowan like an audience.
“I’m tired,” Rowan said.
Mira studied him.
For a moment, he thought she might push.
Then she shrugged with her good shoulder. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Grayhall eats secrets eventually.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
She stood.
Her movement was too fast.
Not as fast as in training, not enough to blur, but still wrong—like her body accelerated before the rest of her decided where to go.
Her injured shoulder clipped the bedpost.
She winced.
Rowan saw it.
Not with his eyes.
Not exactly.
The Archive icon flashed.
Then the black window opened on its own.
Rowan froze.
Mira’s outline sharpened in his vision, threaded with faint blue lines. Around her legs and spine, a skill formation flickered—beautiful, complex, and fractured.
Text appeared beside her.
[External Skill Structure Detected.]
[Skill: Burst Step]
[Rank: C]
[Defect Identified: Deceleration failure.]
[Secondary Defect: Momentum bleed into skeletal frame.]
[Repair Potential: Moderate.]
Rowan stopped breathing.
Mira turned back. “What?”
The Archive updated.
[Analyze external formation?]
Rowan stared at the prompt.
Voss’s warning returned like a hand around his wrist.
You won't experiment on other students.
Power that fixes people can become power that owns them.
Mira frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Rowan forced the window closed.
It resisted for half a second.
Then vanished.
He looked at Mira’s sling.
Then at her guarded, suspicious face.
“Your skill hurts you every time you use it,” he said.
The room went silent.
Mira’s expression changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“That’s not hard to guess,” she said.
“No,” Rowan replied. “But I don’t think it has to.”