Belle stole one of my onion rings. "So Wednesday. New gate. Moderate difficulty, probably secret nightmare difficulty. What’s the actual plan besides ’hope Jace doesn’t need to Overclock again’?"

"I can’t Overclock again," I reminded her. "Six-hour cooldown. If I used it Wednesday, I’d need to burn another cup."

"But you’d do it if necessary." She wasn’t asking.

"Yes."

"Good." She ate the onion ring. "Because if any of us die because you were being precious about your stamina, I will personally haunt you."

"Noted."

Naomi reached over and squeezed my hand with her good one. "Nobody’s dying Wednesday. We cleared today. We’ll clear Wednesday. That’s the job."

Jordan lifted his head. "The job is terrible. I want a new job."

"You can’t quit," Misato said. "You signed a contract."

"I signed under duress. I was tired and someone promised me it would be easy."

"Nobody promised that."

"Someone should have."

The table fell into comfortable banter as food disappeared. Naomi gave me half of my stolen burger back when she realized she’d eaten three-quarters of it. Belle stole more onion rings. Jordan recovered enough to complain about literally everything. Misato texted Blair and didn’t look happy about whatever responses came back.

I checked the system interface. Ten days and four hours remaining. 1,260 points in reserve. One empty essence bottle that needed refilling soon. My stats had all ticked up during the boss fight. Endurance at D-rank, 7.8/10. Strength at D-rank, 6.2/10. Agility at E-rank, 7.1/10.

The Bronze-tier upgrades to Wave Motion and Sensory Hijack had proven themselves. Wave Motion hit harder, flew better, cost less stamina. Sensory Hijack let me scramble that Stalker’s vision long enough to shove my spear through its eye socket.

But Jordan was right. The difficulty spike was wrong.

I’d read enough web novels to know when the system was testing me versus when it was actively trying to murder me. Today felt like the second option.

"Jace." Naomi’s voice pulled me back. "You’re doing the thing."

"What thing?"

"The scheming face. Your eyes glaze over and you start calculating things."

"I don’t have a scheming face."

"You absolutely do," Belle confirmed. "It’s very obvious."

"What are you planning?" Naomi asked.

I considered lying. Decided against it. "I think Jordan’s right. Today’s gate was wrong. I’m trying to figure out why."

Misato set her phone down. "Accidents happen. Gate classification is automated sensors reading mana density and hostile signatures. Sometimes the readings are off."

"How often?"

"Three percent margin of error."

"And what percentage of that three percent involves a full rank increase in boss difficulty?"

She didn’t answer.

Jordan pointed at me. "See? He gets it. Something is wrong. Either the sensors are broken, or someone manually adjusted our gate assignment."

"Who would do that?" Naomi asked. "And why?"

Belle’s eyes narrowed. "Blair."

"Blair doesn’t have access to gate assignments," Misato said immediately. "Those are controlled by IHC administration and faculty oversight. Students can’t touch them."

"But her father can." Belle’s voice went cold. "Johnathan Davenport sits on the IHC advisory council. If he made a call and asked for a difficulty adjustment on a specific squad’s gate to test their capabilities, who’s going to say no?"

Misato’s face had gone carefully blank. The same expression she wore when Blair texted.

"That’s insane," Naomi said. "Why would he care about our squad? We’re first-years. We’re nobody."

"Jace bet against his daughter," Belle said. "Blair doesn’t lose bets. Ever. And when she told Daddy that a lottery kid embarrassed her, what do you think he did?"

The silence that followed answered the question.

I took a long drink of my shake. "So hypothetically, if Blair’s father did adjust our gate choice to make us fail and force me out of the academy per the bet’s terms, what’s our recourse?"

"Recourse?" Misato laughed without humor. "Against a Davenport? There is no recourse. You survive or you don’t. That’s the game."

"Cool. Love that." I grabbed another onion ring. "Guess I’ll just survive harder."

Belle leaned across the table. "You almost died today. If you hadn’t had that emergency boost, the Reaper would have torn you apart. Next time you might not have a trump card ready."

"Then I’ll get more trump cards."

"How? By extracting more essence from—" She caught herself, glanced at Naomi, then at Misato. "By training more?"

"Exactly. Training." I met her eyes and held them. "Lots of training. Extra training. After-hours training."

Her cheeks went pink. "You’re impossible."

"And yet here we are."

Jordan groaned. "Can you two flirt literally any other time? I’m trying to eat."

"We’re not flirting," Belle said primly.

"You’re absolutely flirting."

Naomi’s foot pressed harder against mine. When I looked at her, she was smiling into her water glass. Not upset. Just... aware.

My phone buzzed again. This time Misato’s, sitting face-up on the table where everyone could see.

Blair: Did the fat one die?

Blair: Tell me he at least got hurt

Blair: Misato answer me

Misato grabbed her phone and typed something back. When she set it down, her expression was murderous.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"I told her Jace killed the boss and carried Naomi out after she got injured saving his life."

"That’s not what happened."

"Close enough." Misato’s lime green eyes met mine. "And it’ll piss her off more than the truth."

Belle grinned. "I like it. Make her think Jace is the hero."

"He kind of was," Naomi said softly.

"I really wasn’t. I just had a big gun for four minutes."

"You had excellent control of your big gun," Belle said with a completely straight face.

Jordan choked on his shake. "Please stop."

"Control matters," Belle continued innocently. "Size means nothing if you don’t know what to do with it."

"I’m leaving." Jordan started to slide out of the booth. "I’ll walk home. I’ll sleep on the street. Anything is better than this."

Naomi reached across the table and grabbed his sleeve. "Stay. We’re celebrating."

"Celebrating what? My impending psychological breakdown?"

"Celebrating not dying." She raised her water glass. "To the Midnight Foxes. We went into hell, fought a Silver nightmare, and walked out alive."

Belle raised her glass. "To somehow making three thousand credits in two hours."

Misato lifted hers. "To clearing faster than Blair’s squad."

Jordan sighed and raised his shake. "To never doing that again."

"We’re doing it again Wednesday," I reminded him.

"I know. That’s why I’m suffering." He clinked his glass against everyone else’s anyway. "To suffering together, I guess."

I raised my shake. "To not being dead."

We drank.