Cal laid on the sofa in their shared living space. His leg was hanging off the side and kicking back and forth lazily. He was in his night clothes, having changed the second he'd gotten back from the city.

Cassey had been delivered to a stone-faced captain who hadn't wasted any time stabilizing her before whisking her away. He couldn't help but kick himself for never having learned how to heal someone else. He knew it wasn't a simple thing, but with his control being better than most, he should be able to accomplish it. It had always come off as an intimate action to him, and he'd never had someone to practice with.

He had dropped off his shroud with her and then raced back to the Academy. Maybe he should have stopped by to debrief with Olivia, but he didn't want his absence to be noticed, or at least that was the excuse he was planning to tell her. Try as he might, he could not picture his recount of tonight's activities producing a smile on her face. He'd leave it to the other poor saps—err, brave Federation agents, to pass on the news.

The city had been livelier on his way back. Which was expected, considering someone had deleted a warehouse full of flour. The guards had been scurrying about while people cautiously looked on from their homes. Up until he reached campus, he had been confident in the assertion that it wasn't his fault. Then he'd eavesdropped on a few conversations and discovered that not one but two explosions had been heard. With the warehouse counting as one, it was easy to figure out which had been the second.

It took him a moment to piece together what had happened. Had he been standing on the Academy grounds and someone else had released magic at that scale, he'd not have been able to sense it. Its use was instantaneous, and the distance was too great. At most, something would have flickered to his awareness, but it would have disappeared so quickly he would have questioned its existence.

What he had failed to consider was the chain reaction his magic had started. If he had set fire to a shrub, cutting off the magic wouldn't extinguish it outright. In a similar vein, the air displaced by his manifestation had to go somewhere. The end result was a shockwave heard far and wide.

He tagged it as another lesson learned. It hadn't been something that had come up before, as he'd never tried to power up a sound manifestation to that degree. The slip-up was deemed unimportant; it didn't really change anything on his end. After all, Cal, the dutiful student, had been tucked away in bed the whole night, unlike his delinquent sister, who might have been out playing vigilante.

Cal focused on more important things, like his reserves. He'd spent more than he would have liked tonight, and while he wasn't close to running dry, it offended his sensibilities to take such a setback. Recovering it naturally would be a time-consuming endeavor. Usually, he'd have a core to satiate himself with, or failing that, a hunt scheduled soon after. Here he had neither, and it wasn't like he could just fuck off to the Waste for a day or two…

Right?

Cal began to wonder how quickly those aerial beasts would be able to make a round trip. Would it be so bad to offer to go look for Ferguson on Rolland's behalf? Obviously, he'd not be able to find the man, but if he happened to kill a horde of beasts in the meantime, who would know?

He'd gone from flat denial to entertaining the idea. Especially since there should be nothing preventing him from taking a brief trip. Callum Ardere should be a free man, and while Alice and Lily might have trouble explaining what they were doing in proximity to a wanted criminal, he was sure that with the preparation they conducted, a reasonable excuse was readily available.

Cal sat upright with a frown. Maybe he should go out and look for them? Or, if that was too suspicious, he could go bug the Spirit to see if they were even on campus. Before going that far, he decided to try something easier.

He texted Lily, asking if she'd seen Alice and knew anything about the noise. He waited, staring at his phone. Was her phone still intact? If she had taken it with her, there were decent odds it was not.

It took some time, but eventually, he received a response.

Shut up.

Rude, he'd not even begun rubbing it in. He typed a response, asking if she was going to need to do more community service after this. Speaking of, he should probably get himself signed up for some as an excuse to talk to Ethan again. It would be hard to investigate the Evergreens otherwise.

His phone dinged, and things must not have been so bad if she was replying so quickly now.

Shut up.

It was low effort, and he could feel her frustration. He was typing another response when another message came in.

Infirmary, just past the main entrance on the right. Avoid the front, 3rd balcony from the right, 2nd floor, east side.

With those instructions, Cal got up, patting his stomach. He probably should have eaten something while waiting, but the thought didn't occur to him—mostly because getting carved out tended to ruin the appetite for a while. But he was fine now. He went to their small pantry, raiding it and looking for anything he'd made earlier in the week. Finding some, he slipped them into his pocket and left.

Using his phone's static map, he found the place easily enough. For what he thought should be an important structure, it was far smaller than expected. At a mere two stories, it took half the lot of a regular school building. The roof was also at an odd slant, making one wonder if the builders had read the plans wrong.

From the treeline, he counted out the balconies before leaping toward the third. He landed, finding several weapons pointed at him.

"Thanks, but I'm not looking to get checked in," Cal quipped. He didn't recognize the three on the balcony, but that silver emblem told him they were with William. There were two flanking his sides, with the final member at the front. The blades moved to hover a millimeter above his skin, and Cal deduced that they were not in a joking mood. "Liliane told me to come? I'm Callum Ardere."

The one in front of him gave him a deep stare before nodding.

"Inside," he said simply, turning his attention back out.

The two others backed off, and Cal followed the man's orders. Unlike most balconies here, the door slid open instead of being on hinges. Crossing the threshold, purple eyes locked onto him

The interior was quaint. There was a single bed on which Lily lay upright on, propped up by a tower of pillows. She hadn't changed clothing, and he could see wrappings over her arms and torso; they matched where he remembered her being injured before. Her leg was raised slightly, and the leggings she wore had been torn to gain access to her shin. The limb was braced by a smooth piece of wood and slathered with some salve.

There was a raised table by her bed that looked to be for eating, and dressers pressed up against the far wall. On top of them lay esoteric devices. If he had to guess, which he was, they looked medical in nature. Above them were cabinets that held vials of various sizes and colors. Closer to the door leading to the hall was a chair for visitors. He opted to stand.

"Is this where you tell me I should see the other guy?" Cal opened, seeing her dour expression.

She huffed, blowing an errant strand of hair out of her face. Or she tried to, as it stubbornly stuck to her forehead, matted down by sweat. Cal watched with amusement as she tried shaking her head to dislodge the stubborn hair follicles. She scrunched her face, and that proved enough to resolve her minor dilemma. He noted the lack of arm movement, with them lying limp by her side. A phone was next to her right hand.

"I wish," she said unhappily. "I didn't land a single hit on her."

That matched up with what he'd seen, but he wasn't supposed to know anything, so he raised his eyebrows in false surprise.

"Sounds like you had all the fun without me." He approached her, poking her shin and watching for any reaction. "Do your dates always end this rough?"

The comment did the opposite of his intent, and instead of a heated remark, her expression slackened.

"Hey," she called, oddly calm. "Come closer; I want to tell you something."

Cal studied her closely, seeing the way her lips parted.

"You're going to bite me," he predicted, moving a hand closer to her face to test his claim. He pulled it back swiftly as white teeth clamped down where it had just been. "Very classy." She would not be getting any cookies. "Now do you want to tell me what in the hells happened?"

Lily pouted, eyes narrowing. She glanced outside, toward where the guards were posted, and then back to him.

"You're lucky they went overboard with the numbing agent," she muttered before resuming in a normal volume. "Officially, I was on a date with my fiance. And by date, I mean I made him take my best friend and me on a shopping trip." That was the official story? He supposed that being on an actual date with William was too far-fetched for most people. "He got a report of a wanted criminal being spotted and moved to apprehend him. As nobles carrying the spirit of the Empire, we felt honor bound to assist." Cal could not tell if that was sarcastic or not. "While moving to arrest him, his underling admitted to the killing of a fellow student. We thought she might have just been trying to absolve herself from guilt, but she seemed way too proud of it, and he never denied it. Then this and that happened. Long story short, he got away, I got unwanted acupuncture, and Alie needs to learn how to listen when people are talking."

The warehouse was Alice's doing? That was the best news of the night! He was looking forward to holding that over her head the next time she tried to chastise him on some minor thing.

"And unofficially?" He probed, wondering how truthful she was planning on being.

Her arms shifted, and he got the sense that she would have tried zapping him if capable of movement.

"Before that, do you want to explain why they admitted to the murder of Petro? Because that part was true, and you don't look surprised."

Cal tried his best to not look like a deer caught in the headlights.

Oh…right. That was unexpected from her point of view, wasn't it? Cal searched his memory, but try as he might, he couldn't remember them going over what he would say when the Whistling Death claimed credit for the attack. Did Olivia not think he'd get this far? Hopefully, she'd not underestimate him next time.

"I didn't know you were talking about him." Cal feigned surprise while speaking cautiously, taking time to choose his words. "Petro did ramble on about not knowing who I was dealing with. He hinted at having some powerful guy on his payroll, but then he also made a point of saying he didn't need him to deal with the likes of Emily and me." Cal piled on the lies. "I wasn't exactly asking questions, but maybe that's who he was talking about. It might look bad that his client was killed under his watch, so instead he's taking the credit for it himself?"

The words spilled out of his mouth, and he internalized a cringe. He'd been put on the spot, but was that really the best lie he could come up with? Probably, he wasn't some genius.

"Is that so?" She questioned, holding his stare.

He desperately wanted to change the subject but knew doing that would only invite more suspicion.

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"I don't know. Do you have any better ideas?"

Because he would have loved to have more himself.

Seconds played out, the tension in the room building up. Finally, she blinked, and the intensity was gone.

"He might have been trying to make a statement against the nobility, or maybe someone else just paid him more. Who can say what's going on his head?"

Cal didn't release a breath of relief, but he would have liked to. That had been more nerve-wracking than facing down William.

"Are you going to tell me the unofficial part?" He asked, not comfortable with the silence that had overcome her.

She sighed, shaking her head slightly before beginning to speak.

"We were doing what Vic wanted. Alie set up the meeting, and I got William on board. Which was easy, considering who we were going after." Her tone, which had started off calm, began to shift, the words coming out quicker. "Plenty of people would have been happy to learn he was gone. Which he was supposed to be." Her fingers gripped the sheets, and her nails tore into the fabric. "But fuck me, he's way tougher than anyone said. Seriously. How was he only ever a member of the Blessed Order? They're tough, but they're not hospitalize a Finger tough. William should, no, I should have been enough to kill him. Assassins should not be that strong, not in a straight fight. If there weren't a bunch of other people around, I would have thought I had hallucinated the whole thing."

She had to pause to catch her breath, and Cal took that opportunity to pick at an opening.

"Why did you say assassins? Was there more than one? Not counting the underling, I mean."

He was stealing Olivia's move, but thought his cause was just. He was still unsettled by Lily's questioning and turning the tables on her helped to improve his mood.

"It's better that you don't know," she responded distractedly.

Cal gave her the flattest look he could muster and grabbed her hand. Lifting the limb up, he let it go, and it landed with a plop on the bedding.

"Because that went so well for you," he added, in case his message did not come across.

"We're adding bedside manner to your study plan," she said in a way that made it difficult to tell if she was joking or not. "Let's just say we're not changing wardrobes anytime soon." If he hadn't been there himself, that might have been a tough hint to go off of. "And not telling you was Alie's idea. She figured the second you knew the plan, it would have been impossible to convince you to stay behind."

If he had known she had the pull to get William to play along with their ruse, he would have gladly been on board. Miss Plusier would have been given notice, Cassey would have been left behind, and Cal would have convincingly faked his own death by actually dying. As long as his face was intact, he could afford to lose most of everything else. This was all so avoidable.

"Maybe I wouldn't have." He acknowledged that from her perspective, it would appear he would have trouble keeping out of it. "But is having one more person to watch your back a problem? I'm stronger than both of you."

"Don't be an idiot," she said heatedly. "What do you think happens if you're both there and things go bad? House Ardere would be gone for good. This way, at least one of you would still be around to keep it going."

That was much heavier than expected, but that only made his point stronger.

"Then did Alice have to be there? I could have gone in her place."

He couldn't have, but her logic was flimsy, and he was eager to poke holes into it. In his mind, it was simple. Neither of them trusted him enough to tell him something this sensitive.

Another uneasy silence descended, this one in his favor. He could see Lily waging an internal war. There was something about the atmosphere that told him to hold back.

"I should not be the one telling you this," Lily began, having come to a decision. "It's really not my place. But if I don't, you won't understand." She inhaled deeply, holding her breath for a moment before releasing it. "Alie would have only given you pieces of the story. I know because it's one of those things she hates talking about. I don't know all the details; no one does for sure. What matters is what everyone does know, and that's that your father ran like a coward, leaving his entire family to be slain. Alie would never, and I mean over her literal dead body, put her family at risk while she stayed out of harm's way."

Lily gnashed her teeth and took a sharp breath. Her hands regained life, and she pushed herself further up. With visible struggle, she pointed a shaky finger at him.

"That means you can't die. Got it?"

Shit. Dying was one of his best strategies.

"And yet, she wants me to be a Finger? Because that's not a dangerous job at all. Speaking of which, there wouldn't happen to be an opening now, would there?"

Lily collapsed, the energy from before leaving her body.

"William is… stabilized. I'm not sure if they'll leave him here or send him back to the capital for treatment." Was that regret he detected? Maybe she didn't want to marry him, but Cal realized it was not to the extent of wanting him dead. Good thing he was so careful then. "And do I really have to explain how sending someone who has yet to spend a single semester at the Academy is different than someone who will spend years training and being coached on how to handle bat-shit scenarios like tonight?"

He didn't miss a second in responding.

"Yes."

Seconds ticked by without a word exchanged between them.

"See that pillow under my foot?" Lily asked, looking at the fluffy white cushion. "Do me a favor and smother me with it."

Cal gently pulled the pillow free, making sure not to disturb the leg. He had only just placed the pillow over her face when the door clicked open. Turning to see the battered but still standing girl, Cal said the first thing that came to his head.

"You blew yourself up," he took the offensive, eager to have the edge for once.

Alice shut the door behind her, walking forward and then pulling out the chair to sit by Lily's bed.

"I just finished talking with the headmaster and Justiciar Vincent," she ignored his opening salvo, which he found entirely unfair. "Based on our reports and the investigation by his partner, he's confident in connecting the Whistling Death with the murder of Petro Lucerna. It's also been posed that the perpetrator acted alone and may have perished tonight from his wounds."

He'd been wondering where she was; given Lily's lack of concern, he'd gathered she was fine. What he didn't know was that she was establishing the events of the night with the relevant parties. Had they really convinced Justiciar Vincent that easily? Coupled with Janice's earlier remarks, he began to grow suspicious over how quickly the man seemed ready to sweep this under the rug. If it was just to add a feather to his cap and call it a job well done, that was one thing, but if it was in service of some other objective...

And his head was beginning to hurt. Somehow, he thought that even if there was a super spy in his shoes, they would have trouble keeping track of all the moving pieces right now. Well, Mask wouldn't, but they were the exception.

"Callum," Alice stated plainly. "Please stop suffocating Lily."

He looked down, realizing he'd been holding the pillow firmly in place. With some bashfulness, he removed the pillow, seeing Lily's skin tone matching the color of her eyes.

She took a gasp, her shade turning lighter. Several more followed, and they waited until she was fully recovered.

"Oh, sure, now you worry about oxygen," Lily said while giving a pointed look at Alice. "But when we're standing in the middle of a bomb, it completely slips your mind."

It was nice that they were on the same page about that. Taking that level of explosion head first would kill most.

"I directed some of it away from us," Alice said tersely, not meeting either of their eyes. "And I had other things occupying my mind at the time."

Your tailor trying to thread needles through your skin would certainly be a bit jarring. It was clear her nerves were still jumbled and Cal tried to ease them.

"Well, I'm glad you're both alright," he paused. It wasn't an intentional one. That line had carried more weight to him than it should have. This was problematic, and he sought to disrupt whatever he was feeling. "And that only one of you did something stupid. Unless Lily has anything to share. Like, I don't know, attacking someone way out of your league?"

He gestured to her leg, giving reason as to why he would make such a leap. Alice's lips pressed flat, and she frowned at the girl.

"It's not as bad as you think," she said awkwardly, squirming as best she could with her limited movement. "I knew who I was dealing with. She likes to play with her food, so I figured I'd keep her busy while William does his part. Then he could come back and cover our retreat."

Oh, that was far better reasoned than he expected.

It also conveniently left out how she'd antagonized him before leaving, but that was much more difficult to bring up.

"Lily," Alice whispered, reaching out and holding her hand. "I'm not upset, but I do hope this means you will stop holding back on my account. Your coddling does neither of us any good."

Lily's face fell, and a line of protest looked to die on her lips.

"I didn't mean to insult you," she said with a tired voice. "I just wanted to do it together."

Alice shook her head, a sad smile on her face. Her red eyes bore into Lily, and she gently squeezed her hand.

"Those heights are beyond me. I won't be a Finger and I've made my peace with that." Her eyes glanced at him, and she continued. "I have no need for it either."

Reality struck him hard, and he was left reeling from the blow. Not only did he feel incredibly out of place, but it was more apparent than ever how badly this situation was going to blow up when his identity was finally revealed. The chair would be broken, and there would be no way to fix it.

"Yes, you can," he blurted out with little thought. "Become a Finger that is. I'll help you."

What was he even saying? He could barely pass off training with Marcus. Alice, who knew him far better, would see right through his bullshit.

"Callum." She spoke slowly, in a way that conveyed her sincerity. "That's kind of you, but there's really no-"

"We're doing it," Cal, for some incomprehensible reason, did not take the out he was about to be given. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

He had no idea what he was doing. No, that wasn't right. He knew what he was doing, and that was panicking.

A snicker was heard, devolving into a full fit of laughter. Cal regarded Lily with what, in no way, could be described as a pout.

"Sorry, but you're saying that all seriously, yet you're dressed in pajamas."

He looked down. It was just shorts and a shirt. What was so bad about that? And he'd intentionally not changed to make it seem like he'd been in them all night.

"We can save this for another time," Alice replied while muffling a laugh. "You should go back to bed; you have classes tomorrow."

He did? Right, he'd forgotten it was still the fourth day of the week. Well, just one more day to get through until the weekend.