Mira Ash stilled.
It was impressive, in a deeply alarming way.
For someone whose entire skill seemed designed to turn motion into a personal disaster, she could become perfectly motionless when she wanted to. Her eyes fixed on Rowan. Her good hand dropped slowly to her side. The casual slouch vanished from her posture.
Bren stopped pretending to read.
Jory stopped trying to thaw his tea.
Nox’s paper birds folded their wings at the same time.
Rowan immediately regretted speaking.
“I mean,” he said, “based on what I saw in training.”
Mira’s voice was flat. “What did you see?”
“You hit the stone.”
“Everyone saw that.”
“You couldn’t slow down.”
“Also obvious.”
“Your body took the momentum after the skill ended.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Less obvious, then.
Rowan wished the floor would open and provide a convenient cellar demon.
Mira stepped closer.
This time, slowly.
“You get one chance to explain how you know that.”
“I guessed.”
“Terrible liar.”
Bren sat up. “For what it’s worth, he is getting worse.”
“Not helpful,” Rowan said.
“I disagree.”
Mira ignored Bren. “My file says Burst Step has poor control response.”
Rowan kept his face as blank as possible.
The Archive icon pulsed.
He ignored it.
“My file doesn't say momentum bleed into skeletal frame,” Mira continued.
Rowan’s stomach dropped.
Nox’s paper birds turned toward him again.
Jory whispered, “That sounds painful.”
“It is,” Mira said without looking at him.
Rowan should have denied it.
He should have laughed, shrugged, said he had heard Professor Voss mention it, claimed that anyone with eyes could tell.
But Mira was watching him with the expression of someone who had spent years being told her pain was a side effect, a limitation, a personal failure.
Rowan knew that expression.
Not from mirrors.
From his mother when creditors asked why she hadn't recovered faster after his father died.
From Toma when he joked too loudly about being fine.
From himself, probably, every time someone said zero-rank as if it explained him.
“I saw the way your skill stops,” Rowan said carefully.
Mira’s jaw tightened. “Skills don’t stop where people can see.”
“Yours does.”
“Bullshit.”
“Mira,” Bren said.
She pointed at him without looking. “Not now.”
Bren lifted both hands and shut up.
Rowan stood, because sitting made him feel cornered.
That was a mistake.
Mira was shorter than him, but somehow standing brought him closer to danger.
“I can’t explain it properly,” he said.
“Try.”
“It’s like your skill accelerates you in a straight burst, but when the movement ends, the force doesn’t disperse outward or into the ground. It rebounds through you.”
Mira’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
Jory lowered his tea. “That's why your knees sounded like breaking sticks last month.”
“They didn't sound like breaking sticks.”
“They sounded like expensive breaking sticks.”
Mira shot him a look.
He returned to his tea.
Rowan pressed on before he lost courage.
“You’re using Burst Step like a jump.”
“It is a movement skill.”
“Yes. But I think it wants an exit path.”
Mira stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Yet?”
Bad word.
Very bad word.
Rowan heard Voss in his head.
You won't experiment on other students.
He also saw the Archive text again.
[Repair Potential: Moderate.]
Not high.
Not safe.
Moderate.
He couldn't repair her skill. He would not. Not without understanding what the Archive actually did. Not without telling her the risks. Not without Voss.
But he could think.
Thinking wasn't illegal.
Probably.
“You should ask Voss,” Rowan said.
Mira laughed once.
It had no humor in it.
“I have asked Voss. I’ve asked three instructors, two academy healers, a private consultant my aunt sold half her shop to afford, and one drunk retired adventurer who claimed he could smell bad mana. They all told me the same thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t use the skill too much.”
Rowan had no answer for that.
Mira’s anger burned hotter now, but beneath it was something worse.
Hope she didn't want.
He hated that he had given it to her without permission.
“I can’t fix it,” he said.
Mira’s mouth tightened.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No. I asked how you knew.”
“That’s worse.”
For a moment, they simply looked at each other.
Then Mira turned toward the door.
“Training yard,” she said.
Rowan blinked. “What?”
“You’re going to show me what you mean.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
Mira looked back. “You said my skill doesn’t have to hurt me.”
“I said I don’t think it has to.”
“That's enough.”
“It is very much not enough.”
Bren swung his legs off the bed. “I’m coming.”
“No,” Rowan and Mira said together.
Bren smiled. “Now I’m definitely coming.”
Nox’s paper birds lifted into the air.
Jory sighed and stood with his frozen tea. “If this becomes a medical emergency, I want it known that I advised against it internally.”
“You didn’t say anything,” Rowan said.
“Internally.”
Five minutes later, they stood in a narrow practice court behind Dormitory C.
It was smaller than the main training yard, enclosed by three stone walls and one rusted fence overlooking the cliffs. A few faded chalk circles marked the ground. Someone had painted DO NOT SUMMON HERE on one wall, then someone else had added COWARD underneath.
Moonlight silvered the stones.
The air smelled like salt and old rain.
Rowan wrapped his injured hand tighter and tried to think of seventeen ways this could ruin his life.
He found twenty-three.
Mira stood at the edge of one chalk circle, rolling her shoulders carefully. She had removed the sling despite Rowan telling her not to. Her left arm hung stiffly, but her eyes were bright with dangerous focus.
“Explain,” she said.
“I don’t know if this will work.”
“Noted. Explain.”
Rowan opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
The Archive icon pulsed.
He should not.
He really should not.
He opened it anyway.
The black window appeared, quieter than before, as if it had been waiting just beneath the surface.
Mira’s skill structure unfolded around her again.
[External Skill Structure Detected.]
[Skill: Burst Step]
[Rank: C]
[Defect Identified: Deceleration failure.]
[Secondary Defect: Momentum bleed into skeletal frame.]
[Repair Potential: Moderate.]
[Analyze external formation?]
Rowan didn't select repair.
He selected analyze.
That was different.
Probably.
The formation expanded.
Burst Step was far more complex than Piercing Spark. Blue-white lines coiled around Mira’s legs, hips, spine, and lungs. The skill had a clear ignition point at her calves, a surge pathway through the thighs, and a forward projection line that snapped her body toward a chosen point.
The problem appeared at the end.
There was no closure pattern.
The formation simply stopped.
Momentum had nowhere to go except back through Mira.
Rowan winced.
“Don’t make that face,” Mira said.
“What face?”
“The face people make before saying bad news gently.”
“I’m not saying it gently.”
“Good.”
“When you activate Burst Step, do you pick a destination or a direction?”
Mira frowned. “Direction.”
“Not distance?”
“Distance is based on output.”
“Can you choose less output?”
“Yes.”
“Does that help?”
“No. I still stop badly. Just slower.”
Rowan studied the formation.
Exit path.
The phrase had come from nowhere, but it still felt right.
“What happens if you hit the ground before the skill ends?”
Mira stared. “I fall.”
“No, I mean deliberately. Like redirecting force downward.”
“I told you, I fall.”
Bren leaned against the fence. “She once took out a laundry cart.”
“It was in the wrong place,” Mira said.
“The ground?”
“The cart.”
Rowan crouched and drew a line in the chalk dust.
“Your skill throws you forward. At the end, the force rebounds into your bones. What if you don’t let it end inside you?”
Mira crossed her arms. “I’m listening.”
“Step forward, then drop your heel and twist before the skill collapses.”
“That sounds like dancing.”
“Have you tried dancing?”
“No.”
“Maybe your skill wants rhythm.”
Mira looked offended. “My skill wants to break my legs.”
“Maybe because you keep treating it like a tackle.”
Silence.
Bren whispered, “He has chosen death.”
Mira pointed at the far wall. “If I crash, I’m blaming you.”
“Reasonable.”
“If I die, haunt him,” she told Bren.
“With enthusiasm.”
Rowan stepped back.
“No full burst,” he said. “Lowest output.”
Mira took position.
For the first time, Rowan saw her prepare consciously. Her breathing changed. Mana gathered in her legs, blue-white and sharp. The formation lit up around her, visible only to him.
Too much.
“Less,” he said.
Mira blinked. “I haven’t moved.”
“You’re loading too much.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How can you—”
“Less.”
She exhaled slowly.
The formation dimmed.
“Good,” Rowan said. “Now aim for three steps, not the wall.”
“Burst Step doesn’t do three steps.”
“Then teach it.”
Mira’s smile was sudden and fierce.
“I like that.”
Then she moved.
Not vanished.
Not fully.
She blurred forward, covering the short distance in less than a heartbeat. At the final moment, Rowan saw the formation begin to collapse the way it always did.
“Now!” he shouted.
Mira slammed her heel down and twisted.
The force hit the ground.
Chalk dust exploded outward in a white ring.
Mira stumbled.
But she didn't crash.
She didn't strike the wall.
She didn't fall.
She stood three paces from where she started, breathing hard, eyes wide.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Jory said, “That looked much less like self-harm.”
Mira looked down at her legs.
Then at Rowan.
Again, something dangerous appeared in her face.
Hope.
“I didn’t feel it in my knees,” she said.
Rowan let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
“Good.”
Mira turned.
Again.
“Mira,” Rowan said quickly. “Wait.”
She did not.
This time, she moved five steps.
Heel down.
Twist.
Dust burst.
She slid sideways, caught herself, and laughed.
Actually laughed.
Not bitter. Not sharp. Not defensive.
A startled, breathless laugh that made her look younger than she had all day.
Bren straightened from the fence.
“Well,” he said. “That’s new.”
Mira moved again.
Six steps.
Stop.
A skid.
No crash.
Again.
Seven.
This time her shoulder twinged, and she winced, but she remained standing.
Rowan raised both hands. “Stop. That’s enough.”
Mira ignored him and turned for another run.
“Mira.”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“You’re injured.”
“I’ve been injured for years.”
The words came too fast.
The court went quiet.
Mira seemed to realize what she had said.
Her expression closed.
Then she took another stance.
Rowan stepped into her path.
“Move,” she said.
“No.”
Her eyes flashed. “I said move.”
“And I said no.”
Bren murmured, “This is either brave or stupid.”
“Both,” Nox said.
Mira’s hands curled. “You don’t get to give me one useful thing and then decide when I’m done using it.”
Rowan held his ground.
“No. But I do get to say if you keep going while injured, you’ll blame the method when the problem is you being reckless.”
Her jaw clenched.
That one landed.
Probably because it was true.
Probably because she hated that.
Mira looked away first.
“Fine.”
She stepped back.
Only then did Rowan realize his pulse was racing.
The Archive window flickered.
Text updated beside Mira’s formation.
[Observation: External user adjusted activation behavior.]
[Defect impact temporarily reduced.]
[No structural repair performed.]
[Data acquired.]
Rowan relaxed slightly.
No repair.
Good.
Then the window flashed black-silver.
[External Formation Mapping progress: 100%]
Rowan’s stomach dropped.
That sounded dangerously like a feature name.
New text appeared.
[Access Level recalibrating.]
“Oh no,” Rowan whispered.
Mira, still catching her breath, looked over. “What?”
The Archive expanded across his vision.
Not just Mira now.
For one instant, every student in the practice court lit up in layered diagrams.
Bren’s horned silhouette flickered with green-black curse channels.
Jory’s body glowed with red-blue opposing thermal circuits.
Nox’s paper birds shone with thin ink-thread command lines.
Too much information slammed into Rowan’s skull.
He staggered.
Bren caught him by the shoulder. “Vale?”
The Archive text burned brighter.
[New function unlocked.]
[External Formation Mapping acquired.]
[Warning: Unauthorized mapping may attract Registrar detection.]
The black window snapped shut.
Rowan bent forward, breathing hard.
His head throbbed.
His injured hand burned.
Mira stepped closer, anger gone. “Rowan?”
He looked at her.
Then at the others.
Their skills were no longer visible, but the memory of their structures remained behind his eyes.
Broken things.
Everywhere.
And now the Archive knew he could see them.
Rowan swallowed.
“We need to talk to Voss,” he said.
From the far end of the court, a voice answered.
“Yes,” Professor Voss said coldly. “You absolutely do.”
Everyone turned.
Voss stood beneath the archway, coat dark against the moonlit stone, face expressionless.
His eyes moved from Mira’s chalk-ring stops to Rowan’s pale face.
Then to the faint black-silver flicker fading from Rowan’s right hand.
“I leave you unsupervised for six hours,” he said, “and you begin a forbidden practical research group behind the dormitory.”
Bren raised one finger. “Technically, I was only watching.”
Voss didn't look at him.
Bren lowered his finger.
Mira stepped forward. “Professor, I asked him to—”
“No,” Voss said.
The word cut her off.
His gaze remained on Rowan.
“You,” he said, “are coming with me.”
Rowan’s mouth dried.
“To where?”
Voss turned.
“The part of Grayhall that doesn't officially exist.”