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He paused. “Noted.”

The word felt less like agreement and more like evaluation.

“Come,” he added.

They moved on soon after. The door sealed behind them with a quiet finality.

They returned to the main corridors, but everything seemed to have shifted. The corridors were no longer empty. Movement had returned, people moving quickly between tasks. Boots echoed somewhere below, heavier and more disciplined than the academic scurry.

Military.

She slowed slightly. “There are more guards around today, don’t you think?”

“With recent events, the city requires more security.”

“For what? More creatures?” she asked, almost nonchalantly as if to test his reaction.

“For instability,” he corrected. “Training rotations have been moved below as well,” he added. “Fewer interruptions.”

He stilled briefly, as if realising he’d said more than intended. Maia didn’t react outwardly. But she marked it.

Lower sectors. Training.

So that was where they had put him.

***

By curfew, the city drew inward. Doors sealed and lanterns dimmed like clockwork. Free movement reduced to necessity.

Inside her room, Maia waited. She waited until the outside noise had quietened, until the corridors had all but emptied.

When the bells tolled, she moved quietly and quickly.

She retraced the route in her mind she’d followed earlier that morning with Nuada: the restricted passageways, the guard density, the direction of the lower access points.

And that slip: training rotations have been moved below.

She kept to shadow, avoiding the main corridors, following the quieter routes used earlier that day. The deeper she went, the more the city changed. Less movement. Fewer markings. Stone worn by use rather than maintained for study. Less damage, too, as if this part of the city had been spared what struck the Archive.

Then… steel. Faint, controlled and rhythmic.

Maia slowed, pressing her back into the wall of a corridor hidden in shadow. The sound sharpened. At the end of the corridor, partially obscured where the structure dipped into the lower foundation, she found it.

A training ring. It was set into the stone like something carved out rather than built. Many Umbralyn stood around its perimeter, arms folded and unreadable. It was the stillness of an audience that had already decided what it was going to see. And at the centre, there he was.

The sight of him hit her so hard it hurt.

He moved like something remembering itself. Each strike arrived exactly where it meant to. Each parry closed a door before it had properly opened. His cloak was gone, dark armour catching the light as he turned. No hesitation or visible weakness. He almost looked whole.

Relief bloomed, but died just as quickly.

The careful shift of weight. Clenched teeth at every movement. The hand brushing stone when no one was watching. Then control snapped back into place. He was still hurting. No one else noticed, but she knew they wouldn’t.

When the exercise ended, orders were given in low tones. The others dispersed, shadows melting back into the city’s bones. Maia waited in the shadows for him.

When Caelith finally stepped away alone, she moved as quickly as she could. He sensed her too late.

“Maia,” he said sharply. “What are you—”