The headmaster's office was on the fourth floor of the administrative building.
Lysander had never been inside it. He knew it by its window — the one that looked out over the training grounds, the one he'd occasionally noticed the light behind during early morning practice. Someone always up before the students, always looking at the grounds. He'd filed that as background information and never examined it further.
He examined it now because the light hadn't been on in four days.
He found out through Seris.
She resumed the Thursday session two weeks after cancelling it — arrived at the session room without explanation, set her tea down, and looked at him with the expression she used when she was deciding how much to say.
"The headmaster has been called to a meeting," she said. "He left three days ago."
"What kind of meeting."
"The kind that gets sealed." She picked up the tea. "The heads of the seven great houses. The race council representatives. Senior church officials. They don't meet together often. When they do it's because something has been confirmed that required confirmation before action."
He thought about that. Seven great houses, race council, church — all together, all sealed. The scale of that gathering meant whatever had been confirmed wasn't regional. It was continental at minimum.
"What was confirmed," he said.
"That's not information I have." She set the cup down. "What I know is that it was significant enough to pull the headmaster away from the academy with five weeks left in the year. And that he won't be back before the end of year assessment period."
The end of the year assessment period. The Formal. Five weeks away now.
"Who's running the academy," he said.
"Senior faculty in rotation. Deputy Administrator Holt handles the institutional operations." She paused. "It's adequate for normal circumstances."
He looked at the table. "These aren't normal circumstances."
"No," she said. "They aren't."
The week after that the third years left.
Not all at once — in groups, over three days, equipment packed, organized, the departure of students going somewhere with purpose. The Inter-Race Tournament. Held every three years in the neutral territory between the Elf Courts and the Human territories. Eclipse's third year cohort had qualified two months ago.
He watched them go from the training grounds.
Thirty-four students. The academy's most experienced combat-capable population, its highest-ranked hunters in training, the people who would have been the first response to anything significant happening on academy grounds.
Gone.
The training grounds felt different after the third days. More space. More quiet. The morning practice sessions had a different quality — not worse, just thinner. Like a room with some of the furniture removed.
Two days after the third years left the second year gate mission cohort departed. Forty-one students heading east for a two-week field operation in the regional gate network. Standard curriculum — advanced practical assessment, coordinated gate clearance at B rank level. Legitimate educational purpose.
Also gone.
He ran his morning practice in the emptied grounds and thought about what remained.
First years. Some second years who hadn't qualified for the field operation. Junior faculty. Deputy Administrator Holt. No headmaster. No third years. No senior faculty beyond the ones running session rotations.
The academy was a building with most of its capable occupants elsewhere, for entirely legitimate educational and institutional reasons, in the same five-week window as the Year-End Formal.
Someone planned this, Nythera said.
Yes. He kept his draw repetitions moving — Form I, clean, the lightning discharge at practice level. Whoever has been mapping the lower district gate network. They read the institutional calendar. They knew when the window would open.
And nobody in the institutional structure noticed the convergence.
Why would they. He completed the repetition. Each departure has a legitimate reason. The headmaster's meeting is genuine. The third year tournament is a scheduled event. The second year field operation is curriculum. None of it is suspicious individually.
Only together.
Only together, he agreed.
He finished the session and walked back to the dormitory through the quieter academy, past the buildings that had more lights off than they'd had a month ago, past the administrative wing where Deputy Administrator Holt was handling institutional operations adequately for normal circumstances.
Five weeks.
He needed to find out what whoever had been mapping this territory was actually targeting at the Formal before the Formal happened. He had pieces — the presence in the gate network, the thread, the pattern in the incident logs, the thing that had been mapping this territory. But not the complete picture.
He had five weeks to complete it.
He kept walking.