The mountain air grew colder as midnight approached. Inside the small stone waystation, the muffled voices behind the back curtain had finally softened into a steady, quiet calm.
When Daniel pulled the heavy wool curtain aside, his hand was resting lightly over Mary's. The sharp, suffocating tension that had hung over the group on the high road was gone, replaced by a quiet, united focus.
Noah looked up from where he was restringing his recurve bow near the hearth. He gave a short, silent nod of approval, then tossed a dry pine branch onto the embers.
"Good," Noah muttered, his deep voice barely carrying past the doorway. "Now that the drama's sorted, we have about thirty minutes before Arthur's midnight scout patrol makes its loop through the lower ridge."
"We move together," Daniel said, stepping into the main room with Mary at his side. "No one fights alone from here on out."
Outside the shelter, near the edge of the spruce thicket overlooking the valley road, two figures stood watch in the dark.
Felix leaned against an ancient granite boulder, his massive frame wrapped in a heavy steel-reinforced coat. His silver broadsword—thick enough to act as a tower shield in a choke point—was planted tip-down in the soil near his boots. Beside him, perched effortlessly on the lower limb of a pine tree, was Lucy.
She was light, near-weightless, holding two slender obsidian daggers between her fingers, idly spinning one around her knuckle without making a sound.
"You're breathing too heavy," Lucy said softly, her voice slicing through the rustle of the wind. She didn't look down at him; her sharp eyes remained fixed on the winding road below.
Felix grunted, shifting his weight slightly. "It's the cold. And this armor weighs sixty pounds, in case you forgot."
"It's not the armor," Lucy replied, dropping down from the branch with absolute silence, landing right next to his shoulder. "You've been holding your breath since Noah brought word that Daniel and Lily pulled off the impossible up on the peak."
Felix quieted down. He looked at her sideways—taking in her pale profile, the dark scarf pulled up over her jaw, and the slight shiver she was trying to hide beneath her light leather vest.
Without saying a word, Felix unclasped the heavy wool mantle lined with fur from his left shoulder and draped it across her shoulders.
Lucy froze. She looked down at the massive, warm mantle, then up at Felix, her usual distant expression breaking for a split second into genuine surprise.
"I don't need your coat, Sentinel," she said, though she didn't pull it off.
"You're fast, Phantom," Felix said, his voice low and gruff, a rare faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Fast doesn't mean much if your fingers freeze around your daggers. Keep it on. I have enough iron on me to stay warm."
Lucy pulled the mantle closer around her neck, inhaling the faint scent of pine ash and polished steel that always clung to him. "If it slows me down, I'm dropping it in the dirt."
"Fair enough."
For a moment, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, watching the valley floor together.
"They're really going to tear the Academy down, aren't they?" Lucy asked quietly, her eyes tracking a distant torchlight moving along the perimeter wall miles below. "If Arthur stands his ground... it's going to be a bloodbath."
Felix reached down and gripped the hilt of his broadsword, his knuckles turning white against the leather wrap. "Then I'll stand in front of you. Like I always do."
Lucy turned her head, looking at him for a long, quiet second. "Just make sure you don't get in my way."
Before Felix could reply, the brush behind them rustled. Daniel, Mary, Lily, Finn, and Noah stepped out from the trees, fully packed and ready.
"Scout patrol is five minutes out," Noah said, slipping a quiver of black-feathered arrows over his shoulder. "If we hit the lower gully now, we can bypass the high gates and reach the inner courtyard before dawn."
Daniel looked around at the gather of warriors—the elite, untethered heart of the Ghost Killers.
"Let's go," Daniel said.
Side-by-side, with Felix and Lucy taking up the rear guard, the group slipped into the shadows of the ridge, descending toward the Academy.