Chapter 832: Preparation
Chapter 832: Preparation
After Liam finished speaking with Sheila, he did not return to his room immediately.The conversation had taken enough from the night that hunger finally became more irritating than the cold. He made his way to the cafeteria, bought enough food to avoid needing to leave again, and carried it back to his dorm room without allowing himself to be dragged into any of the conversations still spilling through the hallways.
The second-years were still speaking about Beacon Hall, Eldervale, commander choices, the Warden, and the unpleasant possibility that the academy considered fourteen days a reasonable assessment duration. Liam ignored all of it. He had already spent too much of the day dealing with other people’s thoughts, motives, and looming disasters.
By the time he returned to his room, Mabel had not come back from her patrol.
That was fine. Her work was her work. His was finished for the night.
He finally took the shower he had delayed, letting the hot water drive out the cold that had clung stubbornly to him since his walk through the third-year wing. Afterward, he dressed in simple night clothes, sat at his desk, and ate in silence. The meal was not particularly remarkable, but it was warm, and that made it useful. He waited a few minutes after finishing, less out of discipline and more because lying down immediately after eating felt like inviting discomfort for no good reason, then moved to his bed.
For the first time in what felt like too long, Liam had handled everything that needed handling.
Chris had been confirmed as an active problem. Lucian had been pressed enough to speak. Isolde had been exposed privately and placed under warning. Sheila had been told enough to understand the danger without being given a target she was not ready to accuse. Edith had moved closer into Sheila’s orbit. Nyxie, Smoke, and Raven had been deployed. The Bastion Assessment had been announced. None of the problems were solved completely, but they were no longer shapeless.
That was enough.
For tonight, he had control over the position of the pieces.
He did not need to overthink them.
There was still the matter of the strange watching sensation. Mabel was somewhere in the academy, patrolling for signs of an assassin, spy, magical surveillance, or whatever else had brushed against Liam’s instincts during the day. Under ordinary circumstances, that should have kept him more alert.
Yet, for some reason, Liam only wanted to rest. His mind, which had spent the week cutting through one inconvenience after another, finally refused to keep chewing on possibilities with no evidence attached. If Mabel found something, she would tell him. If she did not, then there was nothing to act on yet.
’Tomorrow,’ he thought, closing his eyes. ’Everything else can wait until tomorrow.’
And so he slept.
The next two days passed with the academy continuing in its usual rhythm, though the atmosphere had changed.
Lessons went on. Instructors still taught. Students still trained, argued, complained, studied, and dragged themselves between departments as if the week had not become heavier. But beneath the usual structure, every year had shifted into preparation.
The first-years had received their own announcement about the assessments waiting for them. The third-years had received theirs as well, though the final-year students were far better at hiding panic beneath discipline and exhaustion. Across the academy, theory exams loomed first, practical assessments after, and the entire school had fallen into that familiar pre-exam pressure where even casual conversations carried the weight of future failure.