Dani Sloan left a note under his door while Soren was in combat training.
Four words: East courtyard. After dinner.
No signature, but her handwriting was neat and forward-slanting, same as the notes she left in every file the academy had on record.
He showed up at six-thirty with Grimm on his heels.
Dani was standing by the stone fountain in the east yard, the one the academy had turned off two weeks ago because the pump kept freezing.
Her clipboard was under her arm, the folder in her hands open and loose, pages catching the wind.
The moth sat on her collar with its wings folded tight, pale gold against the gray of her uniform.
"Cole Harver came to your room at five-seventeen this morning," she said.
"Yes."
"He filed an unclassified event report and gave you a twenty-eight day window."
"Yes."
"My window is thirty days." She turned a page while the wind tried to take it. "His deadline lands two days before mine."
Soren looked at the courtyard.
Two first-years were crossing the far end of the yard but they were too far to hear.
"Whoever sent him," Dani said, "gave him a shorter leash than the one I'm holding. Someone coordinated the timers."
"Yeah."
"Someone is using both of us to manage you." She closed the folder against the wind. "That makes me a tool, Soren Kane, and I don't like being a tool."
Grimm's head turned toward the admin building, ears going flat.
Soren followed the wolf's gaze.
Light on the second floor. Joan's temporary office, the one that stayed lit at all hours because Joan Sawyer never stopped working.
"She's up there," Soren said.
"She's always up there. That's why we're out here." Dani pulled the folder open again, angling it so only he could see the top page.
"Cole Harver has two active cases and both are unclassified events in the last four months at academies in the Continental network."
She held the page flat against the cardboard backing. "Both involving tamers with illegal early bonds and anomalous evolution events."
Soren read the names. He didn't recognize them.
But the locations were both places the novel had flagged as sites for Fracture Events.
Three of those were going to happen in the next eighteen months. One was going to happen here.
"You know those names," Dani said.
"I know the locations."
"Same thing."
A gust hit the yard hard enough to rattle the dead fountain pipe, and Dani's folder pages flapped until she pressed them down with her palm.
"One of those academies had a Fracture Event six weeks ago," Soren said. "The tamer survived. The bonded beast didn't."
Dani's pen stopped against the page.
"That's not in any report I've seen."
"It wouldn't be."
Dani looked at him for three seconds, then tapped her collar.
The moth lifted off her neck.
It flew into the space between them, about chest height, wings spread wide.
Dust scattered off the wings in a fine cloud that caught the last of the evening light, then the dust formed shapes.
Lines first then names.
A chain of command drawn in gold particles hanging in the air between his face and hers.
Cole Harver at the bottom.
A line running up to the Thermal Division.
Another line running from Thermal to a box labeled Continental Council Oversight Committee.
A name in the top box.
Dani's last name.
"That's my father." Her voice dropped under the wind. "He runs the Continental Oversight Committee. He assigned Cole."
The moth's projection shifted.
The gold dust rearranged into a second chain beside the first one, running from the Oversight Committee down through a different branch, through an office labeled Placement Division, down to a single name at the bottom.
Fen Harrak. Class A. Placed seven months ago.
Two months before the academy opened.
"I didn't build that second chain," Dani said. "My moth found it on her own. She's been cross-referencing Bureau records since Cole showed up at your door."
The projection held for another few seconds before the moth folded its wings.
The gold dust scattered.
"The Bureau is tracking tamers who produce anomalous bond readings," Soren said.
"They think anomalous bonds predict Fracture susceptibility. They're close, but they're measuring the wrong thing."
"What's the right thing?"
"I'm still working that out."
"Soren Kane."
"Give me a week."
Grimm pressed harder into Soren's leg.
The wolf had been tracking the second-floor window the whole time, her body getting tighter against him with every minute they stayed in the open.
"Tell me about the fracture," Dani said.
"A Fracture is what happens when a dimensional boundary collapses. The academy's dungeon system runs on controlled boundary stress, so academies with active dungeon networks sit at higher risk."
He kept his voice low. "The Bureau knows this. They've known for years. They're not publishing it because the second they do, three hundred academy networks shut down and the ranking system collapses."
Dani closed the folder. The moth settled back onto her collar, wings tight.
"How do you know all that?"
"My bond gives me environmental feedback. The spatial pressure in this building matches the readings from the week before Western Continental fell."
Dani put her pen in her pocket. "So you're reading a structural failure in real time."
"The Bureau has the same stress limits I'm reading. They're ignoring them." Soren glanced at the second-floor window.
"The spatial rifts are accelerating. If the collapse happens early, the people who are supposed to survive will be in the wrong positions."
"Including you."
"Including me. That's why I need the twenty-eight days. To rank up before the boundary tears itself apart."
The wind pulled a loose page from the folder. It skidded across the courtyard stone and neither of them went after it.
"I'm going to need more than theories," she said.
"I know."
"I need one verifiable proof. One thing I can confirm on my own."
"Fen Harrak," he said. "The student in the medical wing. Check his file. He was placed in Class A as a monitoring asset seven months ago, two months before the academy opened. He reports to the same chain that assigned Cole Harver."
The moth on her collar opened both wings all the way and held them there. The gold color caught the last of the sunset.
"The chain that assigned Cole," she said slowly, "runs through the Thermal Division, through the Continental Council's oversight committee."
"Yes."
"My father sits on that committee."
The courtyard was getting dark. The fountain pipe rattled once more and went quiet.
"Check the file," Soren said. "See when the placement was authorized. If the date is before the academy's official opening, you'll have your proof."
He started walking toward the east wing.
"Soren."
He stopped.
"Whoever is running this from my father's committee... they can't stop the Fracture with monitoring reports. Nobody can. The only thing that holds the boundary is someone strong enough to stand in front of it."
Her moth's wings were still fully open.
The beast was running hot even if Dani's face was calm.
"I know," Soren said. "I'm working on it."
He walked. Grimm fell into step beside him, silent, her shoulder pressed against his leg.
[DING! — New information integrated. Timeline deviation: 41%. Fracture Event: estimated arrival recalculated.]
[DING! — Previous estimate: Chapter 93 equivalent. Revised estimate: Chapter 31 equivalent.]
[DING! — Quest timer: 28 days. Fracture Event: estimated 18 days.]
Soren stopped in the middle of the corridor.
Eighteen days before the Fracture.
Twenty-eight before his obsession cap collapsed.
His soul was at seventy-six percent, Grimm couldn't speak, and Selah was still figuring out what she was.
Grimm pushed her head hard into his palm.
He closed his hand around her ear and stood there running the math until the hallway lights switched to the red night setting around him.
"I'll need a new plan."