Henryk wasn’t just appalled by the fact that Gerald was dead—

  It was how they had left him.

  Face-down, mutilated, alone.

  Evidence be damned. He would be damned before letting his sisters ever see him like this... and Gerald—

  Gerald had a brother too, didn’t he?

  The room itself hadn't changed. A cramped, cinderblock square that stank of industrial cleaner and old cigarettes. Henryk could still picture it: Gerald slouched on the cot, Henryk hunched on the battered metal chair, knees almost touching.

  Gerald hadn’t treated him like a freak. Not like the others.

  Even Ed, for all his loyalty, had his moments of doubt. But Gerald—

  Gerald had something carved into him. A leadership not born of politics or breeding, but of blood and iron.

  Henryk knew—because Joseph and Axel had taught him, and because Arthur had spun him tales late into cold Oceana nights—how deep the old blood feuds ran between Mars and Pluto.

  Most of his squad would've let him rot, let him drown in those sewer tunnels when the siege broke.

  But Gerald...

  Gerald had dragged him out, pumped the filthy water from his lungs with his own hands.

  They had fought back to back in the alleyways.

  They had pulled screaming civilians from collapsing rubble.

  And now—

  Gerald lay face-down on his desk.

  Dead.

  His head...

  God, his head—

  It looked like someone had taken a chainsaw to his neck and lost interest three-quarters through. Jagged shreds of meat hung where the spine should’ve been. His mouth was frozen open, lips stiff and blackened, a river of dried blood pooling at the corners.

  The tongue lolled out, slack and stupid.

  “Jesus Christ, what a fucking mess,” muttered Edward, lifting his shirt collar to cover his nose.

  “Gerald was a good guy. Nobody deserves this.”

  Henryk barely heard him over the thunder of his own heartbeat.

  The world closed in tight.

  "Henryk," Ed said again, voice cutting through the haze.

  Henryk blinked, shook his head as if trying to rattle the nightmare loose.

  “H-Huh? You were calling me?”

  Ed’s gaze was steady. Too steady.

  “You good, man? You were zoning out.”

  Henryk dragged a trembling hand across his face.

  “His head, dude... it’s fucking—”

  He couldn't finish. His fingers shook like they were wired to a live battery.

  “Who the fuck would do this?” he spat, more fury leaking into his voice than he intended.

  Ed didn’t answer. Just sighed, low and weary.

  The door to Gerald’s room hung open, and from beyond it, the chaos outside bled in.

  Voices shouting. Soldiers—Plutonian Academy kids, barely out of boyhood—milling in the corridors and the highways, wide-eyed and desperate.

  "What happened to the president?! What happened?!" someone screamed.

  Another voice answered, brittle and panicked:

  "We don’t know! We don’t know!"

  Near the threshold, Bracken—Gerald’s kid brother—sat slumped on an overturned beer crate, cradling his rifle.

  A laser carbine hacked into an M16 frame, scratched and scorched from too much use.

  Henryk stared at him, bile rising in his throat.

  “Where the hell’s the Academy faculty?” he snapped. “Fuck that, where are the police?”

  Ed gave him a look that was almost pity.

  "...You really still don't get it, do you? This ain't a normal school."

  Henryk’s blood turned cold.

  He turned, slowly, to face Ed, his face a waxy, ghostlike mask.

  “You're telling me,” he said hoarsely, pointing back at the body,

  "that even though he was murdered—**murdered—**inside their own walls—"

  his voice cracked—

  "Edward, this wasn’t a duel. This wasn’t anything licensed. Somebody came in here with... with something... and—"

  "You don't need to act so foolish, mutant," said a cold voice from the hall.

  Henryk froze.

  Logan entered first. Blond curls falling into his too-pretty face.

  Stella followed, a head shorter, her black hair flowing wild and unkempt.

  Her gaze flicked once to Gerald’s body—

  —and then she sneered and looked away, as if the sight of it offended her.

  “…There. We’ve seen it now,” Stella said, voice clipped and flat. “What are we going to do about it?”

  Henryk’s eyes widened. His heart punched at his ribs.

  “We?” he barked. “The fuck is ‘we’?”

  There was an urgency to his tone now, heavier than he realized—hot, rising up from his gut.

  “Easy, hick,” Stella said, almost bored.

  “Yeah, easy, hick,” Logan echoed with a crooked grin, tapping two fingers against his temple like Henryk was some drooling idiot.

  Henryk’s fists clenched so tight he swore he felt the bones crack.

  Another curse was at the edge of his teeth—he had to bite it back so hard it hurt.

  Then Ed’s hand fell on his shoulder—firm, grounding him for just a second—and Henryk flinched like he’d been shocked.

  “T-That’s not what she means,” Ed said quickly, voice low and urgent. He didn’t take his hand away. “At the Academy… there’re punishments the faculty can bring down when shit gets too rowdy.”

  Henryk shrugged him off with a sharp jerk, teeth bared.

  “What about the house executions, huh?” he snapped. “You think they’ll stop at punishments?

  There’ve been times—kids ruthlessly executed, right on these grounds, and nobody says a goddamn thing.”

  The air between them crackled, heavy and brittle like a storm about to break.

  Henryk's eyes fell on Stella again.

  It was strange seeing her now.

  He’d only had one real conversation with her before this—if you could call it that.

  She’d tried pressuring him, cornering him into giving up his father’s sword, selling it off to some no-name peacock from her house...

  or letting it rust away in a goddamn museum.

  His eyes narrowed.

  Fuck that.

  Fuck her.

  Fuck Logan.

  The Martians had taught him:

  To renounce your blade was to renounce your life.

  You lived by the sword.

  You died by it.

  A tremor ran through him.

  When had he started thinking like that?

  “…Those are two completely different things,” Stella sighed, rolling her eyes. She cast another look at Gerald’s ruined body and visibly swallowed, a thick vein rising on her forehead.

  She pushed the tangled black strands from her brow with a trembling hand.

  “We need to wait for the other presidents. We should speak in private. Away from the little brother. Away from the others.”

  Logan barked a laugh, casual and ugly.

  “They won’t do shit. And the little pussy looks like he’s inches from crying.”

  Henryk growled deep in his throat, raising a fist before he could even think about it.

  Logan saw it—and smiled like a man seeing dessert coming.

  "Do something, faggot," Logan said, pointing at him like he was marking a target. "I fucking dare you."

  Henryk moved—

  —but Ed seized him by both shoulders, dragging him back with surprising strength.

  "You’re really gonna dishonor Gerald by throwing hands over his corpse?" Ed barked, desperate.

  "Shit, Henryk, he’s not even—"

  "Then call the fucking cops!" Henryk roared, wrenching free. His voice cracked and broke into the air.

  "This is insane! What are you all so afraid of?!"

  The answer came from behind them, cool as glass:

  “…Afraid of the potential political ramifications of what’s to come.”

  Henryk spun.

  They hadn’t even heard them approach.

  From the shadows emerged two figures—

  as if the darkness itself had unzipped and let them through.

  The first:

  A tall girl, light brown skin and long, straight black hair that gleamed like oil under the dying hallway lights.

  Her eyes were sharp as a hawk’s, unblinking.

  The second:

  A much smaller girl, maybe no older than fifteen, porcelain-skinned, delicate, with perfect, doll-like features.

  She smiled—

  a private, knowing smile that sent a ripple of unease through the group.

  Both wore ceremonial robes, the colors stitched into the hems marking them as something higher, something older.

  Whispers rippled through the soldiers of House Pluto:

  "H-How the hell did they get here?"

  There was no room. The hallway was blocked on both ends—hundreds of bodies packed in tight.

  It should’ve been impossible.

  And yet—

  there they stood.

  Esava—the President of House Jupiter—

  and Himari, her second.

  The Witches of Jupiter had come.

  And they were looking straight into the blood-soaked room, straight at Henryk.

  Esava took a single step forward, and it was like the room shrank to meet her.

  She was the tallest girl Henryk had ever seen—taller than him by a good couple inches, and even Edward, with his enhanced Martian physiology, stood merely at her eye level. There was something statuesque about her, but not cold—something watchful, dangerous, coiled.

  Himari sauntered into the blood-smeared room after her, hands in her sleeves, gaze bright and wandering. She smiled lazily, her voice honey-sweet and dripping with venom.

  "I agree. Take this conversation elsewhere," she said, tossing her head back. There was too much joy in her voice, too much tease, like a child playing with a knife.

  "Little boy," she purred—and Bracken’s whole body stiffened like he’d just had a cattle prod jammed under his ass.

  He seized his rifle with an iron-fisted grip, whirling himself upright with a soldier’s practiced violence.

  "You speaking to me, witch?" he snarled.

  Himari only chuckled, her face glowing with mischief.

  "Blood Rites of Ancient Pluto say you're technically next in line, don’t they?"

  Bracken said nothing—just stared.

  And that silence said enough.

  Himari chuckled again, lighter, taunting.

  "Lead us to the Presidents’ conference room… or maybe yours," she said, flourishing her hand in a lazy, mocking bow.

  But Esava wasn’t looking at Bracken.

  Esava’s gaze stayed locked on Henryk, and Henryk felt it like a burning coal on his skin.

  Usually, he’d meet a look like that with his own fire, a challenge spat back in defiance—but there was something else in her stare. Something worse.

  It felt like she was trying to peel him. Trying to step inside his skull through his eyes and set up camp.

  So, Henryk turned his face away, sweating under the weight of her scrutiny.

  Footsteps echoed from behind.

  Zephyr entered next—

  —and he wasn’t alone.

  The second figure was someone Henryk had never seen before—and judging by the way Edward stiffened, neither had he.

  Zephyr was a short, roundish man with a jolly grin that didn’t quite reach his calculating eyes.

  The kind of man who wanted you to think he was harmless.

  The kind of man who smiled just a little too wide when an enemy like Gerald wound up dead.

  Henryk saw it.

  Edward saw it too—his glance quick, questioning.

  Henryk answered with a look that could've broken teeth.

  Henryk's fists coiled tight. Tight enough his elbows locked, his body reflexively bending into a fighting stance, like a loaded spring waiting for a trigger.

  The urge to strike was a living thing inside him.

  And in all honesty—with the way these scavengers slithered and smiled around Gerald’s corpse—Edward thought twice about drawing his Executor right then and there.

  The fact that he didn’t?

  The only miracle of the night.

  Clive followed behind, a gangly scarecrow of a man whose arms looked like someone had yanked them out of their sockets and stitched them back wrong.

  He strutted into the room, black eyes glistening with an insectile quality—

  a mosquito’s hunger, something you could only see if you stared too long.

  Henryk felt a cold shudder slip down his spine—and he wasn’t the only one.

  Even Himari, even Esava, two apex predators in their own right, twitched away instinctively when Clive slithered closer, almost careening into Logan and Stella on the far side of the room.

  Clive only glanced at them, expression unreadable.

  Zephyr, meanwhile, stood in the center of the room, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, staring at Gerald’s ruined body.

  The grin melted off his face now, replaced by something grotesque—half-revulsion, half-glee.

  Murder didn't taste so sweet up close, did it?

  Henryk thought bitterly.

  He wasn’t stupid.

  Gerald had saved his life.

  There was a debt owed—blood for blood—and Zephyr, out of every worm and weasel slithering into that room, had been smiling.

  Back on Mother Earth—back in the time of old American courts—that alone would’ve been enough to get a man dragged out in irons.

  Why the hell was everything taking so long?

  Their friend—their comrade—was rotting in a chair, and here they were, standing around like tourists.

  "Chainblade," Clive said, sudden and sharp as a blade sliding free of its sheath.

  He raised a thin, crooked finger toward the chewed flesh and torn muscle clinging to what remained of Gerald’s body.

  Everyone's eyes snapped wide.

  Clive wrapped his long arms around himself, smiling the way a wolf might smile at a crippled deer.

  "It's the most obvious answer, isn’t it?" he continued, voice light, almost singing. "Just look at it... look at how ghastly it is."

  "Sounds like you’ve got plenty of experience," Stella said dryly from across the room, her arms folded tight against her chest.

  Clive chuckled—a noise that had no warmth at all.

  "I've been on this end of the slaughter many times before, ma'am," he said, and the way he drawled ma'am made something cold skitter up Stella’s spine. Like an insect laying eggs inside her nerves.

  "So," Logan said, dragging the conversation back on track, "the murderer used a chainblade. That narrows it down."

  That was when the footsteps started.

  A flurry at first. A commotion.

  Then silence.

  The kind of silence you get just before a storm rips the sky open.

  Henryk lifted his head toward the semi-open door—and saw them.

  A wave of their peers flooded toward the room.

  But these weren’t the Sons of Pluto.

  No, they were...

  "Hey there, Henryk," came a warm voice, almost boyish.

  Atticus.

  The young man he’d fought what felt like a lifetime ago, standing there with a bright grin—and beside him, Clarissa, scowling like she wanted to peel someone's face off.

  "It’s been a minute. How’ve you been?" Atticus said, genuine and disarming.

  Henryk didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t want to—but because suddenly, the room was choking with bodies.

  The Presidents had come.

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  The heads of the Houses of the Academy.

  It became clear fast: they couldn’t all fit.

  Even the Presidents’ Conference Room felt like a closet now.

  Clarissa plopped herself onto a battered couch, scratching the back of her neck and laughing under her breath.

  "…Even the couches feel mangy. Like sleeping on bedbugs," she said, grinning wide enough to show teeth.

  Some of the others shot her strange looks, but Clarissa didn’t care.

  "Not all of us can be as blessed as you, Clarissa," Atticus said, smirking.

  Clarissa shot him a look sharp enough to draw blood.

  "Wipe that smile off your face," she said sweetly, "or I’ll wipe it for you."

  Atticus's smirk faltered.

  He crossed his arms, turned away.

  Clarissa just smiled wider, leaned back into the couch, and shut her eyes—pretending she didn’t notice the thin sheen of sweat slicking her brow.

  As soon as her eyes closed, Atticus was back to smiling.

  They all came now.

  Even faces Henryk barely recognized—names he'd only heard in whispered rumors or passing mentions.

  The roll call assembled itself:

  Henryk and Edward, of House Mars.

  Logan and Stella, of House Neptune.

  Clarissa and Atticus, of House Earth.

  Zephyr and Clive, of House Mercury.

  Bracken—newly blooded, newly crowned—of House Pluto.

  Esava and Himari, the Witches of Jupiter.

  But there were absences too.

  Holes in the gathering.

  And just as that thought settled—a knock rapped at the door.

  A strange, hollow sound.

  In stepped the Presidents of House Uranus.

  The Innworlders.

  Gaunt specimens, skin stretched thin over their bones like canvas pulled tight across broken frames. Eyes hollow. Movements slow and deliberate, as if Earth’s gravity still weighed them down.

  They were human, sure—but something in the way their bodies hung together said otherwise.

  Their limbs were skinny, elongated, stretched too far at the elbows, the knees, the joints. For a heartbeat, they almost reminded Henryk of Clive, standing stiffly to the side like some half-forgotten nightmare.

  But the Innworlders wore no madness on their faces. No hollow blackness where their eyes should be, like Clive.

  Their gazes, strange as they were, still felt human.

  Henryk could feel it prickling at the edge of his mind’s eye—the emotions. Raw, brittle, and sharp.

  An emotional branch of humanity, he thought.

  There were three of them.

  One girl. Two young men.

  One boy was pale as wax, the other dark-skinned with strong, elegant features.

  The girl shared the pale complexion, but there was a fire in her, burning hotter than the other two.

  Esava crossed her arms, her stare cutting across the room like a thrown dagger.

  "President Nickolas," she said, her voice cold enough to crack ice.

  "The order was to bring only two members. Only two."

  She carved those last two words out like she meant to drive them straight into someone's ribs.

  Nickolas only smiled, a thin, boyish thing that barely touched his eager brown eyes.

  His black hair hung in a mop over his glasses as he sauntered forward, raising his hands in wordless apology.

  "Ay, what can I say?" Bryan chimed in for him, flashing a sharp grin.

  Dark-skinned, cocky, Bryan scanned the tense room without an ounce of fear.

  "...Our people have a habit of getting picked off when we’re outnumbered," Bryan said with a shrug, easy and unbothered.

  "Just hedging our bets."

  The girl—Violet—let her eyes sweep the gathering like she was counting threats.

  Her wiry black hair tumbled in front of one eye, framing half her pale face.

  Her eyes, blue shot through with hints of purple, flashed eagerly.

  She was tall.

  Damn tall.

  One of the tallest people Henryk had ever seen—and in this room of freaks and fighters, that said something.

  "About time," Logan scoffed, his patience fraying.

  "We need to get this crap on the road. What the hell are we still waiting for?"

  "That's what I'm saying too," Stella muttered, dabbing sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

  Then he came.

  Ivan of House Saturn entered first, solid and businesslike in the standard student uniform.

  But beside him—looming—was someone else.

  A young man with white-blond hair, almost silver.

  He was tall—dangerously tall—the kind of height that made Henryk's gut tighten.

  Even Arthur, with all his Martian-blooded enhancement, might have hesitated against someone like that.

  This one wasn’t just tall.

  He was built like a wall of bricks and rebar.

  Yuri.

  His blazing blue eyes cut through the tension in the room like headlights through fog.

  He didn’t wear the Academy uniform, just a track suit—easy, casual, disrespectful.

  He gave a lazy wave on entering. No smile. Not even the ghost of one.

  And trailing behind him was the third.

  Carmen.

  A short girl, tan-skinned, hair pulled into two puffy pink pigtails that bounced with every angry step she took.

  It was a pink too vibrant to be natural—but with all the new mutations cropping up these days, Henryk wasn’t sure anymore.

  What surprised him more wasn’t the hair.

  It was the anger.

  Carmen’s face was twisted up like a dog ready to bite, every muscle knotted and trembling.

  Her fists were jammed deep into her pockets, shoulders hunched.

  It was only then Henryk noticed the flight suit she wore, scuffed and patched and unmistakably real.

  A pilot.

  ...and Henryk’s eyes narrowed.

  This one carried herself like a killer.

  Not pretending. Not playing.

  Built for it.

  He turned toward Ed—and caught the sight of his friend fighting not to chuckle, struggling to keep a straight face at how small the girl was.

  Henryk just shook his head.

  Sometimes, he forgot how stupid the Martians could be.

  Backwards, even now.

  "...Martians think size is everything," he muttered under his breath. "But in the time of mobile suits, women are joining the battlefield in numbers we couldn’t even recognize before. The next war..." His voice dropped.

  "Who knows how many thousands will fight. How many thousands will die."

  He didn’t need to say anything else.

  Ed had heard him—loud and clear.

  The laughter in Ed's throat dried up like a well in the desert.

  "This is ridiculous," Logan barked, his voice cracking into the rising noise.

  "We had rules for a reason. How the hell do we even know you fucks aren’t packing something?"

  "How do we know you aren’t?"

  It was the pink-haired girl, Carmen, grinning like a devil with a knife behind her back.

  "Pencil-dick over here looks like he’s hiding something small enough to sneak past security."

  The room split open.

  Logan’s eyes bulged like they were about to pop out of his skull, and Henryk—he couldn’t hold it.

  Laughter tore out of him, deep and ugly. The women snickered too, the sound infectious.

  Logan turned purple, his fists balling up at his sides.

  But Stella stepped in, cutting the tension before it boiled over.

  "President Nickolas. President Ivan," she said, firm, sharp, raising a hand like she could physically hold the chaos back.

  "There was a murder. A murder. We have rules for this sort of thing." She jabbed a finger toward them.

  "One lieutenant. One trusted individual to serve as a witness. That’s the way it’s always been."

  She let that hang in the air like a blade.

  "...Last thing we need is another accusation," Violet added, rolling her eyes hard enough to hurt.

  "After Mars got shamed, we're already getting shit dumped on us. Thanks for making it worse."

  Zephyr laughed coldly, cutting through the tension like broken glass.

  "And you think breaking the rules makes you look less guilty?"

  Nickolas and Bryan shot him sharp, burning looks.

  Zephyr glared right back, a dare behind his smirk.

  And then another voice joined the blood-smelling air.

  "What about you?"

  Clarissa’s voice, hard as iron, punched across the space.

  Her glare locked onto Ivan like she had a noose in her hand.

  Ivan only shrugged, looked left, looked right—pretended he wasn’t being talked to.

  Clarissa’s tone rose, almost a yell.

  "What’s your excuse?"

  Ivan just chuckled—a deep, ugly sound.

  The wolfish boy beside him, the one with the white hair and wild eyes, grinned wide enough to show every sharp, white tooth.

  "The moment we saw those freaks multiplying," Ivan said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "you thought we were gonna get caught lacking?"

  Henryk’s fists curled into rocks without thinking.

  He didn’t realize how hard until Edward’s hand clapped onto his shoulder.

  "You gonna beat up every racist in the galaxy?" Ed muttered.

  Henryk grunted, teeth grinding together.

  His fists loosened, dropping to his sides like dead weights.

  What was the point?

  All that talk of being the Executor of Mars—and here he was, a dog on a leash like the rest of them.

  A servant wearing a crown too heavy to lift.

  And then—

  The final piece of the rotten puzzle slid into place.

  Jace.

  House Venus.

  The last time Henryk had really seen Jace—it wasn’t just passing him in the halls, two ghosts avoiding eye contact.

  No.

  The real last time was when he had Jace’s face mashed into the dirt.

  Henryk would never forget the stares.

  Back then, he hadn’t known that the one he was pummeling into the dirt was the prince—the heir—of Venus and all its sprawling systems.

  Hadn’t known about the massive target he was painting onto his own back.

  Hadn’t known how far and deep the exile would cut.

  All because he thought with his fists first, not his head.

  But wasn’t that the Martian way?

  To lose yourself in the blood heat of combat—to throw your soul into the fire because that's the only way you were ever taught how to live?

  The duality twisted inside him even now, a snake coiling in his gut, as Jace entered—and behind him, the lieutenant.

  Henryk’s eyes widened, almost against his will.

  This one... this woman...

  She didn’t just walk into the room.

  She commanded it.

  Her purple dress whispered along the floor behind her, a flowing train like the tail of a comet.

  Her eyes, the same sharp hue as Jace's, swept the room—methodical, clinical—measuring every single soul present, one by one.

  The lamps cast long shadows now.

  Outside, the windows were black as a tombstone, night pressing up against the glass.

  The group had already been dead on their feet, some yawning in between their muttered conversations—but when she walked in, the exhaustion vanished.

  It was like a blade had been drawn.

  Jace's eyes found Henryk's across the room.

  And just like that, the rest of them—the crowd, the furniture, the air itself—evaporated.

  There was nothing but him and Jace, and a hunger between them that could only be fed with blood.

  But then—

  Another.

  Himari.

  Smiling.

  A phantom in the space between them, reminding them this wasn’t a game for two anymore.

  This was a plane of threes, and every misstep would be fatal.

  "Okay, we're all here!" Ivan barked, snapping the spell apart.

  "Let's get this show on the road. I've got classes tomorrow morning, even with this dead body shit breathing down our necks."

  "The education system in action," Atticus quipped dryly from the side, pulling a few hollow chuckles from the others.

  Clarissa only turned toward him with pure disgust on her face.

  "So what are our options?"

  Zephyr’s voice cut the air next, rough and practical.

  Clarissa lifted her shoulders in a half-shrug and let her gaze sweep the room like she was counting how many dead men stood among them.

  "I can imagine none of us want the Academy's higher-ups catching a whiff of this," she said, voice tight.

  "If they do..." She jabbed a finger downward, stabbing the floor.

  "They’ll shut down the Guild. No questions asked."

  Stella nodded, her head snapping to each face in the circle.

  "...That means no missions, right?"

  The group began nodding, muttering.

  "No missions," Clive grumbled, voice low and miserable like he was mourning a lost limb.

  "No money. No experience for the recruits. Just sitting around here with our thumbs up our asses."

  Even Zephyr twitched slightly at that word: recruits.

  The way it came out of Clive’s mouth—a thing that wasn’t quite human trying to act like it understood the weight of soldiers and battle—left a bitter taste.

  Jace sighed, stepping forward into the center of it all like he was walking into the eye of a storm.

  "I went into the room," he said, spreading his hands wide. "And I'm not going to sugarcoat it—it’s ghastly."

  His voice cracked slightly, the smallest tremor slipping out.

  "If we really have a murderer walking among us..." He hesitated.

  "God knows when they'll strike again—or who they'll take next."

  The tension twisted, thick enough to choke on.

  Nick, Violet, and Bryan drifted closer to where Henryk and Edward stood, moving like shadows across the floorboards.

  She stood six feet tall, her body elongated in ways that drew the eye whether you wanted it to or not.

  Her chest, the gentle sweep of her curves—it all spoke to a kind of cold perfection, engineered or born, Henryk couldn't tell.

  He felt strange. No grin, no crude remark on his tongue. Just a tightening in his gut he didn't like.

  Ever since Maelia...

  Mutant girls—no, he hated even thinking the word. It didn’t feel right anymore, not after everything.

  She caught him staring.

  And he didn’t stop.

  She watched the small flicker of a smile cross his mouth, and something in her broke—her cheeks blooming red as she turned away, sweeping a thick strand of hair across her face like it could hide her.

  Henryk frowned.

  Why blush?

  What was it she thought he saw?

  ...and for a moment—only a moment—he thought he did see something.

  A shimmer of extra skin where it shouldn’t be.

  A flicker in her eye.

  Her hair too heavy, too alive.

  But no.

  It had to be a trick of the light.

  Had to be.

  Esava drew a breath deep enough to rattle the walls.

  "I hate to agree with the Venusian," she said, voice low. "But he makes a good point."

  Zephyr lifted his hand, solemn.

  "My lieutenant, Clive, raised it earlier—the only weapon that could've made that mess back there is either a chainsaw or some kind of chain-weapon."

  "...all those around reported hearing not even a peep," Edward said, almost too casually from the side.

  The whole group froze.

  That ugly, uncomfortable silence, the kind you got after someone said something they couldn’t take back in a classroom, settled over them like dust.

  Slowly, heads turned—first toward Edward, then toward Henryk.

  Henryk blinked, even he hadn't expected Ed to know that much.

  "...and how do you know that?" Clarissa snapped, her voice heavy with suspicion and a sharp edge of annoyance.

  Edward stiffened.

  The realization hit him late, the way a drunk realizes he’s said too much at a funeral.

  Before, he'd been itching to go after Henryk for defending House Uranus.

  Now he was the one coughing up details nobody had asked him for.

  "Me and Henryk were the first ones here," Edward said quickly. "We were asking around when we got the call from Bracken."

  Henryk gave a curt nod.

  It was true enough—he'd talked to Bracken, Ed had been poking around about Gerald.

  "Hah," Logan snorted from the side. "So you two were just in the area, huh."

  Zephyr shook his head, slow and heavy, like he was trying to physically throw the stupidity off him.

  "...There’s no point to this," he muttered.

  "No point to what, exactly?" Logan barked back, his tone sharp enough to draw blood.

  Stella groaned, raking a hand through her hair.

  "What, you think the freak was the first one here and...what? Called the cops himself?"

  Clarissa’s scoff was a hard, ugly sound, heavy enough to rattle the glass.

  "We need to get this shit handled," she said, biting each word.

  "I’ve got reports stacking up from fucking Germany about the next wave of recruits they’re shoving into the House.

  I've got mech assignments due Thursday.

  We do not have time to screw around."

  Her voice dropped, low and dangerous.

  "Are we going to report this and add another goddamn problem for tomorrow—or are we going to handle it ourselves?"

  A tight, loaded silence.

  "...and what does handling it ourselves mean, exactly?" Bryan asked from the side, his voice quieter, sharper.

  The majority of them huddled into a rough circle, the room too cramped for all the anger leaking off them.

  Outliers—House Uranus, House Mars—stood back, arms folded, leaning into the shadows.

  Separate.

  Waiting.

  "A little street justice," Yuri said, laughing under his breath, a sick little chuckle that didn’t touch his eyes.

  Atticus stepped into view, blond hair catching the light like a warning.

  "We’ll clip the bastard," he said coolly.

  "Gerald might not have been a House member, but pulling something like this and just walking away..."

  Atticus clicked his tongue, sharp and dismissive.

  "This is rotten business. Jace is right. We can't just stand around."

  Esava crossed her arms, sweeping her gaze across the circle like she was weighing each and every one of them.

  "The bright side," she said, voice low and cutting, "is that the weapon is very particular."

  She leaned in, narrowing her eyes.

  "Anyone from a House that bears chain weaponry... you will be accounted for. And you will be checked for damages."

  A ripple of unease.

  Soft shifts of boots on concrete.

  And then:

  The Witch of Venus.

  Eliza.

  Her black, heavy-lidded eyes never strayed from Himari.

  And Himari... she couldn’t stop staring at Jace.

  Eliza smirked and gave Jace a casual, cruel shrug.

  "Do you remember her?" she said lightly.

  Jace shot her a look, scoffing as he turned back toward the group, the conversation, the real world.

  Anything but that.

  "...Hell to the fuck no," Ivan barked, his voice scraping rough against the stale air.

  Esava's eyes snapped to him.

  "What do you mean, no?" she demanded.

  Ivan stiffened, and it was the girl beside him who moved first.

  Small, pink-haired, looking almost delicate—until she spoke.

  "The ChainBlade," she said, voice trembling with anger, "is a holy weapon."

  She sauntered forward, head high, daring them to stop her.

  "You will not seize my family's heirloom. It's been in our blood for generations."

  Clarissa scoffed hard enough to rattle teeth.

  "A quick ascension wouldn’t be so bad," she muttered from the side, crossing her arms.

  Logan barked out a low laugh, deep and ugly.

  "Yeah, that's easy for you Earthlings to say. You don’t have any ChainBlades."

  Clarissa's eyes narrowed into slits, her brow furrowed deep.

  Logan shook his head like he was trying to physically shake the stupidity off his shoulders.

  "I’m not for it," he said flatly.

  "And first off—why the hell are we just doing whatever the Witch says?"

  Ivan’s voice cut in sharp.

  "What do you mean?"

  Logan raised both hands, mock surrender.

  "I mean we don't need this shit. If there’s a murderer, it ain’t one of ours."

  He jabbed a thumb toward his chest.

  "We didn’t do this."

  "You’re a real dick," Clarissa snapped.

  "Who knows—maybe it’ll be your head served up next on a silver fucking platter."

  Logan's smile dropped off his face like a rock.

  "That a threat?" he growled, eyes narrowing to slits.

  Tension rippled, violent and brittle, across the room.

  And then—

  "Why are we doing this right now?"

  It was Edward’s voice—but no.

  No, it wasn't.

  It was Henryk’s.

  Louder. Rawer. More alive.

  He stepped forward, arm slashing through the air like he was cutting through smoke.

  "We haven’t even decided if we’re going to the police—and you jackasses are already talking about hunting down the murder weapon?"

  Henryk turned on them, eyes wide, furious, wild.

  "This is madness!" he roared, his voice filling the cramped room, bouncing off the walls like gunfire.

  He jabbed a hand toward the doorway, toward the blood still cooling somewhere outside.

  "I just saw Gerald! Just saw him!

  And now he’s dead.

  Gone. Just like that, like he was nothing.

  And you’re all sitting here worrying about your fucking missions and your bullshit!"

  The room froze.

  Every single one of them.

  Even the hardened Innworlders of House Uranus stood still, their breath held tight in their chests, like Henryk's words had struck some awful nerve they hadn’t even realized they had.

  The air was electric now.

  Edward moved to Henryk’s side, silent and heavy-footed, as they faced the seething crowd.

  "...Well, luckily, Henryk," Zephyr said, his voice light and mocking, "your vote isn’t the only one that matters."

  He wrapped his arms around himself like he was cold.

  "I kinda liked Logan’s idea. Gerald wasn’t one of mine. If we just give the body back to his brother—he’s the President now, right?—he can just check a few boxes, mark it off as a mission casualty. Pluto’s poor. Weak. You lean on him a little, and..."

  He made a soft, dismissive noise in the back of his throat.

  Henryk’s face twisted, his whole body jerking forward with fury.

  "This is fucking insane!" he roared.

  He stalked around them, eyes cutting from one face to the next, saying nothing—but everything was there, in the way his lip curled, the way his fists balled at his sides.

  "All of you. Just a bunch of rich, spoiled fucking pricks," he spat.

  "My friend is dead! And you're treating it like a goddamn business transaction!"

  He turned away, shoving past the tight bodies, looking for air.

  "Where are you going...?"

  A soft voice behind him, uncertain.

  Himari.

  He didn’t know why he answered. Didn’t know what nudged the words out of his throat.

  "To the police," Henryk growled. "Because this—this fucking farce shouldn’t even be a discussion. This is supposed to be a school, for Christ’s sake."

  Logan laughed, a low, vicious sound that echoed off the walls.

  "Whoa, this is rich," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

  He sneered around at the others, inviting them into the joke.

  "You know why you’re getting so worked up, Brown? It’s because you fuckers don’t take your missions from the Guild," he said, throwing his arms wide to the crowd.

  "If there’s an investigation, it won’t matter to you.

  Us? We’d get roasted alive."

  "Oh, that’s such crap," Edward snapped back, his voice sharp and cutting through the tension like a blade.

  He looked around, daring anyone to contradict him.

  "Gerald was a good guy. And while I don't always agree with my Executor..."

  He paused, his jaw tightening.

  "...I'll stand with him. I trust Henryk to do what's right."

  The air cracked, the room tightening.

  "You love riding the high horse, don't you?"

  Jace’s voice cut in like a knife.

  His tone was low, almost casual. But every word dripped venom.

  "You pretend you’re better than us. Pretend you give a damn about justice."

  Jace stepped closer, close enough Henryk could smell the expensive cologne masked under sweat.

  "But you’re no better than a stray mutt, Henryk Brown," Jace said, smiling that dead, cold smile.

  "You tried to take advantage of my little sister. You should be dead right now.

  Dead and buried like the dog you are."

  Henryk’s teeth flashed, his mouth twisting into something almost animal.

  "All talk, Jace," Henryk hissed through clenched teeth.

  "You’ve always been all talk."

  He leaned forward, snarling the words like a challenge.

  "That’s why you sent Jose to deal with me. Isn’t it?"

  The room froze.

  The silence was thick enough to choke on.

  Eyes darted. Whispers started but died in throats.

  Even the hard men of Uranus shifted uneasily.

  Jace's face paled, then darkened, lips peeling back over his teeth in a snarl.

  Before he could speak, Logan stepped forward instead.

  He flashed his teeth in a grin that didn’t reach his dead, sharklike eyes.

  "You’re a wild one, Henryk Brown," Logan said, voice full of mock admiration.

  "Like a dog. Always barking, always biting. Can’t help yourself, can you?"

  He leaned in, his voice dropping low enough only Henryk could hear.

  "But trust me," Logan whispered.

  "Mutts like you? You always get put down."

  Henryk’s whole body locked up, muscles trembling with rage.

  He grit his teeth so hard he could feel the pressure in his skull, feel the animal in him straining at the leash.

  He wanted to hurt them.

  He wanted to fight.

  Images flashed behind his eyes—visions of blood, of dirt, of the sewers of Oceana.

  If it had been Logan and Jace down there, crawling through the Grimgar horde...

  He would have been smiling.