They found Kai in the dining hall, which was unusual, he usually avoided it during peak hours.

He sat at a corner table with a book and a plate of food, eating with genuine interest, indicating he had decided that maintaining normalcy included sticking to meal times.

He looked up when they approached, assessed their expressions, and closed his book.

They sat down. William activated the crystal again at low volume, angled so only the three of them could hear.

Kai listened without moving.

When it finished, he was silent for a moment, looking at the table.

"Three weeks," he said.

"Yes."

"Then they’ve been watching since registration closed. Every practice session, every public appearance, every time the team moved together." He looked up. "They’ve been confirming behavioral patterns. Movement habits. Who travels with whom, which routes are used, where the natural isolation points are."

"Isolation points," Seraphina said.

"Locations where the target would be separated from people who could intervene. The competition is full of them — individual combat brackets, solo event categories, changing areas, transit between venues." Kai’s voice was level, the way it got when he was processing something significant and keeping the processing internal. "They’ve had three weeks to map the competition layout against the target’s probable movements."

"Which we don’t know," William said. "Because we don’t know who the target is."

"We know it’s someone on the competing roster." Seraphina had her arms folded, not defensively but with the contained quality of someone holding a lot of energy still. "The registration data covers all competing students. Every academy."

William looked at her.

She caught the look. "I know. It might be from another academy."

"The Hollow Court was embedded at our expedition," Kai said. "Which means their preliminary operational presence was established here, in this location, before the competition begins. Relocating primary operations to target a student from a different academy is possible but operationally inefficient. The most likely target is someone from this academy."

"Or someone they expected to be at the expedition who wasn’t there," Seraphina said.

Both of them looked at her.

"Think about the expedition roster. Who was supposed to be there and wasn’t?" She looked between them. "The expedition was a combined third and second year field exercise. Original enrollment was higher than the final group — I saw the preliminary lists when Henrik was coordinating logistics. Several students dropped in the week before."

"You remember who dropped," Kai said. It wasn’t a question.

"I remember patterns. I don’t remember specific names from a list I glanced at three weeks ago." She paused. "But Henrik would have the original enrollment records. And Henrik is in the medical wing with a broken arm and nothing to do but sit and think."

Kai looked at William. "Can you access Henrik without it appearing significant?"

"He knows me from team practices. A visit from a student he’s worked with wouldn’t be unusual." William considered it. "Though Henrik is also someone who asks direct questions and expects direct answers."

"He already knows something is wrong with me," Kai said. "His question in the clearing — *what are you* — suggests he’s been thinking about it. If we approach him with a specific request for expedition enrollment data, he’ll want to know why."

"Then we give him part of the reason," Seraphina said. "Not all of it. Enough that it’s true." She looked at Kai. "He cares about those students. The ones who were on the expedition. If we tell him we think the threat isn’t finished — that whoever was behind Derek’s operation may still be active during the competition — he will help us. He doesn’t need the full context to make that decision."

Kai considered it. "You’re right."

"I know." She said it without arrogance, just as fact. "When?"

"Tomorrow morning," William said. "Before the student body is fully active. Early visiting hours in the medical wing start at seven."

Seraphina nodded once, the gesture that meant something had been decided and she was moving on. She unfolded her arms and pulled her tray toward her, and William recognized the shift — the moment when she stopped being in tactical mode and started being in the mode where she was also a person who needed to eat dinner after a long training day.

He pulled his own tray closer.

For a few minutes they ate in silence, the dining hall moving around them with its usual dinner energy. Conversations at nearby tables about the competition, about council selections, about the weekend. A group of first-years near the windows engaged in what appeared to be an argument about soup. Normal things.

"Hale," Kai said eventually. "The functionary. Your mother is tracing his connections."

"Yes."

"If she reaches the next layer while we’re in the middle of the competition, the information transfer becomes complicated." Kai turned his cup. "Is there a secure channel that doesn’t require the message crystal? Something with faster response?"

"She left me a secondary contact in the capital. A merchant named Ashwin who runs a legitimate textile business and has worked with my mother for twelve years. Messages can go through him with same-day turnaround if needed." William had memorized the details before leaving the estate because his mother had told him to. "He’ll know if the message is urgent."

"Good." Kai made a small sound that wasn’t quite satisfaction but was adjacent to it. "Your mother is remarkable."

"She would accept that characterization."

"She should. Most people in her position would have moved to protect their family through political maneuvering or by withdrawing their son from the competition. She chose to gather intelligence and equip him instead." He looked at William directly. "She believes you can handle what’s coming."

"She believes I have to," William said. "Whether I can is secondary."

"That’s not what I observed in her choices," Kai said. "She gave you tools. She gave you information. She gave you time with your sister because she understood the psychological value of it." He was quiet for a moment. "She gave you a contingency letter and told you only to open it if something happened to her. That’s not the behavior of someone who thinks failure is probable. That’s the behavior of someone who has prepared for the worst case while expecting the best."

William didn’t respond. There was nothing to add to that.

Seraphina was looking at him from across the table with an expression that was softer than her default, which she was apparently not bothering to adjust, which he was learning to receive without deflecting.

"Four days," she said.

"Four days," he said.

"We find the target before they do," she said. "Or we identify when and where the attempt will happen and we’re already there."

"One of those is significantly harder than the other," Kai said.

"Then we start with the easier one and move to the harder one when we have more information." Seraphina ate the last of her food and set her fork down with finality. "Henrik tomorrow at seven. Message crystal checked twice daily. If your mother’s contact sends anything, we hear it immediately." She stood and picked up her tray. "And everyone trains normally. No changes in routine that suggest we know something."

"Agreed," Kai said.

She looked at William once more, brief and direct, and then turned and carried her tray toward the kitchen return.

William watched her go.

"She’s going to be fine," Kai said quietly, not looking at him.

"I didn’t say anything."

"You didn’t need to." Kai opened his book again, which was apparently the conclusion of the conversation. "Get some sleep tonight. You’re going to need it for the next four days."

William sat for another minute at the table while the dining hall moved around him, students talking and eating and existing in their ordinary evening rhythms, and thought about his mother’s voice from the crystal and about Seraphina’s hand on the training hall door that morning, and about Kai’s assessment that this loop was different, that the outcome was not fixed, that the deviation from pattern had already begun.

He finished his dinner.

He checked the crystal once more before pocketing it — dark, no new pulses.

Then he went back to his room, and reviewed his mother’s techniques journal for an hour, and slept without dreaming.

Four days.

---

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