Ren was alive when I found him.
The next lesson had teeth because Malcris understood what teachers and monsters shared: both could call danger education.
That was the first useful fact.
The second was that no one had died while I was crossing the academy.
That should not have felt like a victory. Unfortunately, Astral Zenith had lowered my standards with impressive speed. Between Correction Events, ambitious nobles, instructors who treated moral philosophy like a hunting license, and a World Script apparently offended by basic decency, an afternoon without a corpse now counted as institutional restraint.
The third useful fact was the broken porcelain.
Three cups. Wide spread. One deliberate spill near the staircase, one impact break against the wall, one shattered beneath Ren's heel. A trail, not an accident. He had remembered. He had made noise. He had created witnesses before fear could convince him silence was safer.
Good boy, I did not think.
