Three months.

Three months of sparring with Sylceris every morning, eating together, studying together, walking the halls together.

Three months of divine magic lessons with Selene, each one warmer than the last, each one ending with longer looks and less excuses.

Three months of Aegis publicly playing the cold, disaffected noble while privately juggling a wife, a church inquisitor, a shadow mage, and a household full of people who all needed her attention.

Three months of the twins feeding her names, too. The list had grown to six confirmed Umbral Blade operatives at Rosevale, not counting Sylceris herself. Six students embedded in the population, blending in, waiting.

Selene had four hearts and a kiss she still hadn’t acknowledged out loud. Sylceris had five hearts, a bondmark Aegis had gotten after that first time, and a growing trust that Aegis was going to have to betray eventually.

[Don’t think about that part yet.]

The bondmark was, by the way:

Umbral Vanguard

+25 Resistance to shadow magic

Oh, and three months of fucking Sylceris Wynne.

Currently, Aegis had her hands on Sylceris’s hips, fingers digging into bronze skin, driving into her pussy from behind. Sylceris was face-down on the mattress, her white hair fanned across the pillow, her fists clenched in the sheets, her ass pushed back to meet every thrust.

"Harder," Sylceris said into the pillow.

Aegis obliged, slamming her hips forward, and Sylceris’s back arched. She was tight and wet and every time Aegis bottomed out, Sylceris’s whole body shuddered. Aegis grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulled her head back, and fucked her deeper, her cock stretching Sylceris’s pussy with each stroke.

"Fuck," Sylceris gasped, her voice cracking, "fuck, right there, don’t stop—"

Aegis didn’t stop. She kept the pace, her thighs slapping against Sylceris’s ass, one hand in her hair and the other gripping her hip hard enough to leave fingerprints. Sylceris came first, her pussy clenching down around Aegis’s cock so hard it almost hurt, her whole body going rigid as she buried her face in the pillow and moaned.

Aegis followed a few thrusts later, burying herself to the hilt and cumming deep inside her, her hips twitching as she emptied herself into Sylceris’s pussy. She stayed there for a moment, breathing hard, still inside her, feeling the warmth of it.

Then she pulled out slowly, and a line of cum dripped down Sylceris’s thigh.

[Three months of this, and I still haven’t gotten tired of it.]

She collapsed onto the bed next to Sylceris, both of them sweaty and breathing hard, staring up at the ceiling.

The thing was, the sex made the lie easier.

That was the uncomfortable truth Aegis didn’t love admitting to herself. Keeping up the act that Sylceris was the one she truly wanted, that her marriage to Talia was political theater and her real affections lay here, was a lot more convincing when she was genuinely enjoying herself. And she was. Sylceris was intense and demanding and competitive in bed, the same way she was about everything, and Aegis liked that about her. A lot.

[Which makes this whole thing more complicated. But that’s a problem for future Aegis. Present Aegis just had a great orgasm and isn’t going to ruin it with guilt.]

Sylceris rolled onto her back, chest heaving, her dark eyes half-closed. She lay there for a minute catching her breath, then turned her head to look at Aegis.

"Library. Tonight. After dinner."

"Okay?"

"There’s something I want to talk to you about." She paused. "Something important."

"You can’t just tell me now?"

"No. Not here." Sylceris sat up and started gathering her clothes from the floor. "Tonight."

[Cryptic as ever.]

"Fine. Tonight."

---

Selene’s office had become a familiar place over the past few months.

The prayer room was still their primary training space, but for conversations, Selene preferred her office, a small room near the chapel with a desk, two chairs, and a window overlooking the courtyard. Neat, organized, everything in its place. Very Selene.

Aegis sat across from her and ran through her mental inventory while Selene poured tea for both of them. Three months of divine magic lessons had produced real results.

Beyond Lumen Ward and Divine Spark, she’d picked up Divine Sight, a detection spell that let her sense dark magic residue in an area, and Sanctified Ground, a wider-area ward that purified shadow corruption in a small radius.

[Not bad for someone who was supposedly a shadow mage three months ago.]

"So," Aegis said, accepting the tea. "I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear me out before you react."

Selene’s blue eyes sharpened over the rim of her cup.

"That’s never a reassuring way to start a conversation."

"I know. But this is important." Aegis set her tea down and leaned forward. "I believe there are multiple Umbral Blade operatives currently enrolled at Rosevale Academy. Students. Embedded in the population, hiding in plain sight."

Selene’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth.

"I’ve been gathering information quietly over the past several months," Aegis continued. "I didn’t want to come to you until I had enough to be useful, and I have reason to believe there are at least six of them."

"Six." Selene set her cup down carefully, like she was afraid she’d break it. "You’re telling me six shadow mages have been operating inside this academy. Under my watch."

"Under everyone’s watch. These people are trained. They don’t practice openly, they don’t meet in the same place twice, and they recruit from students who already have grievances against the system. Commoners, disgraced minor nobles, anyone who feels like Valdria failed them."

Selene was quiet for a long moment, her jaw tight, her eyes fixed on the desk between them. Aegis could see her processing it, running through the implications, the months of surveillance she’d been doing that had apparently missed all of this.

"How did you find them?" Selene asked.

"I have people I trust. They’ve been watching, compiling patterns, tracking movements. I’ll give you everything I have, names, meeting locations, schedules, all of it. Soon."

"Why not now?"

"Because I need a little more time to confirm one last lead. I want to make sure the list is complete before we move. If we act too early, the ones we miss go underground and we lose them."

Selene studied her for a long time. Then she exhaled and picked up her tea again.

"You’ve been running a counter-intelligence operation inside the academy for months," Selene said. "Without telling me."

"I’m telling you now."

"You should have told me sooner." There was an edge in her voice, the professional kind, that of the church officer who’d just been told she’d been outperformed by a student.

"Maybe. But I needed the information to be solid, and I needed you to trust me enough to believe it when I brought it to you." Aegis met her eyes. "Do you? Trust me?"

Another pause.

"Yes," Selene said. "I do."

[Good.]

---

The library was quiet after dinner, most students having retreated to their dorms or the common areas. Aegis found Sylceris in one of the back alcoves, their usual spot, sitting with her hands folded on the table and no books in front of her.

That was unusual. Sylceris always had a book.

Aegis sat down across from her.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Silence for a moment. The library was empty enough that Aegis could hear the candles flickering in their sconces. Sylceris wasn’t fidgeting, she was too disciplined for that, but there was a tightness in her shoulders that Aegis had learned to read over the past three months.

"So," Aegis said. "The important thing you wanted to talk about."

Sylceris looked at her. Her dark eyes were steady, but her jaw was set tight, her fingers pressed together on the table. She was nervous. Sylceris was never nervous.

"I want to tell you why I’m really here," Sylceris said. "Not the version I gave you before. Not the recruitment pitch or the ’pick a side’ speech. The real reason."

Aegis leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and waited.

[Well. Here we go.]