Word moved fast.
"Tesni Mendoza has left Mendax Mansion," Collin announced to anyone within earshot of the corridor. "She is living in her own duplex now."
Randy leaned against the locker beside him. "Already showing out and she has not even started classes yet."
The hallway filled quickly when she walked in, the particular energy that gathered around people who carried their own gravity pulling everyone toward the entrance.
Tesni stopped in the middle of it and looked around at the assembled faces with the expression of someone who had used up every form of patience she owned before nine in the morning.
"Thank you all for the welcome," she said, her voice carrying clearly without being raised. "But I am here to study. Like everyone else in this building. Anyone who photographs me without permission or crowds me will be reported. No exceptions and no second chances."
"Why did you change your address?" Collin called out.
"I would consider that none of your business," she said pleasantly. "Thank you."
Randy shook his head from behind him. "Did she just speak to you like that?"
Nobody at Jade College talked about Cased the way they talked about other people. They talked about him the way people talked about weather systems, something to be aware of, something to route around, something the school authorities had quietly decided was not worth the confrontation.
The arm caught her mid stride.
Tesni stopped, looked down at it and then up at the face attached to it. She slid her hands into her pockets and waited.
"What is it?"
"Get on your knees," the boy beside him said. His name was Soshim and he delivered the instruction with the confidence of someone who had seen it work every time before. "Apologise to him."
"For what exactly?"
"He is Cased," Randy offered, as though that completed the sentence.
"And I am Tesni." She looked at the hand on her arm. "Please remove that. I have a class."
"You still will not apologise?"
"Tell me what I have actually done and we can have a conversation. Until then I genuinely do not know what you want from me." She looked between them. "Think carefully before you answer. You are supposed to be young men.Not women arguing about anything,"
"Now," Cased said. Just the one word.
The two of them moved before she could react, forcing her down to the corridor floor, positioning her directly in front of where Cased stood, his knees at her eye level.
"Apologise," he said. "Now."
"No."
Something shifted in his face. "You think being a Mendoza makes you untouchable. Let me show you what it actually means in this school." He reached for his belt. "Last chance."
"Still no."
The belt came up.
"You do not hit girls."
The voice came from somewhere behind Cased, unhurried and completely certain of itself.
Cased turned slowly. "Who are you and what exactly is your business here?"
"My business is that you do not hit her."
"Hey." Randy stepped forward.
The new arrival looked at him with an expression of mild patience. "Do you hear that?" He tilted his head slightly. "That sound in the distance. That is a convoy. Her father's men." He glanced between them with complete calm. "You have about ninety seconds."
Randy grabbed Cased's arm. "It is true. I can hear it. We need to go."
They went.
The corridor emptied and Tesni got up from the floor, brushing off her knees with the brisk efficiency of someone who had decided this incident was already behind her. She looked at the person standing in front of her.
"Thank you." She paused. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Is it a crime?"
She studied him properly for the first time. Brown hair. Light brown eyes that matched it. Built broader than his age suggested, the kind of person who took up space without trying to. There was something familiar about the way he carried himself, unhurried and watchful, like someone who was always three seconds ahead of whatever room he was standing in.
Who is this, she thought.
The principal's office felt smaller than it had any right to be.
Mr. Mendoza stood in the centre of it with the particular stillness of a man who had arrived calm and was choosing, with considerable effort, to remain that way. He had not sat down. He had not been invited to and would not have accepted if he had been.
The principal looked up from behind his desk with the composed authority of a man who managed difficult parents regularly. It was, under normal circumstances, an expression that served him well.
These were not normal circumstances.
"What brings you here, Mr. Mendoza?"
"I cannot believe," Mendoza said quietly, each word placed with the precision of someone who understood that quiet was more dangerous than shouting, "that my child has to be bullied. On her first day."
The principal straightened. "We do not support bullying here, Mr. Mendoza." The words came out immediately, rehearsed, the institutional response of a man who knew exactly what this visit could cost him. A thin bead of sweat formed at his temple without his permission and he did not dare reach up to wipe it.
Mendoza stepped forward and placed his phone on the desk between them, screen up, the video already running. Where they were bullying Tesni. He said nothing. He did not need to. The footage spoke with a clarity that no amount of carefully chosen words could match or deflect.
He straightened and looked the principal directly in the eye.
"Twenty four hours," he said simply. "Sort it out."
The principal stared at the screen. The sweat at his temple had been joined by another.
He nodded.
Elsewhere, the room was quiet and dark.
Aine was jolting in her sleep, her body flinching against something invisible, her hands moving restlessly against the sheets as though trying to push something away. Her breathing was shallow and uneven, too fast for rest, too desperate for peace.
Sweat gathered at her hairline.
Jokull sat beside her and watched for a moment before he reached out and replaced her restless hands with his, holding them still, trying to draw her back to the surface without startling her further.
Then she spoke.
"Ravi." The name came out small and unguarded, the kind of voice that only exists when a person does not know they have an audience. "Please don't leave me. I like you around me. I don't want to be alone."
Jokull went very still.
He kept his hands where they were. He said nothing. He waited until her breathing slowed and the flinching stopped and the tension released from her shoulders one careful degree at a time.