CHAPTER 28: THE STREET THAT WENT COLD

They rebuilt the arena into a street.

Two-story fronts leaned over a lane of cracked flagstones. A chipped fountain sat at center, coughing rusty water. Laundry lines crossed a balcony like spiderwebs. Fog hissed from gutter vents. Ward posts hid under shutters and buzzed like flies. Wooden placards were nailed to doors in neat hand: Clinic, Watch Post, Refuge.

Proctor Pierce stepped onto a balcony and hung the rules over us with his voice. "Crisis Response Practicum. Map rotates every three minutes. Stabilize the square, evacuate civilians, neutralize hazards. No written scores. Harm a civilian, you fail. Spill blood without cause, you fail. Saints judge triage, ethics, restraint. Pressure events may occur."

He never explained "pressure events." The school preferred you learned those by feeling them.

Saintess Liora took position at the Clinic, white over blue, wrist-bands loose and quiet. Assistants set out splints, bandage rolls, jars that smelled like pine and iron. Dorian Kest stood on a second-floor rail, arms folded, a second-year so still the street felt steadier because he was in it.

Teams went up on the slate. My draw: Gareth Blackwater, Pelham Gray, a nervous second son named Baird, and a quiet west-dorm girl who held her wand like it might bite if she gripped it wrong. Lyra wasn’t assigned to a team. A simple brass badge hung at her collar—Refuge coordinator. Intake ledger, headcount, lines kept moving. The kind of role people ignore until the first bottleneck turns into a stampede.

Seraphine’s route clipped ours. She looked like a portrait: white hair bright as frost, amethyst eyes taking inventory, mouth polite. She folded her hands and watched the map with the calm of someone who trusted herself to bend it.

The horn blew. Fog rolled. The street woke up.

We worked fast and ordinary. Gareth raised knee-high walls to funnel bodies toward Refuge. Pelham pulled a moaning mannequin from under a cracked cart and carried it like it owed him rent. I tore a shutter off its hinges and braced a buckled slab into a ramp so old women wouldn’t have to hop. The west-dorm girl drew a thin ribbon of water down a gutter; it found an ember pocket and drowned it before it learned the word "fire."

Not heroes—just useful. I breathed four in, held two, rolled three out. Anchor Step caught bad footing. Internal sat where I put it and left when I told it to. Marrow stayed in Shade, posture low, not menacing. Hollow perched under a balcony and clicked once when a draft lied about direction.

Then a laugh cut through the practical noise—too sharp for the mannequins’ looped moans. Not amusement. The kind of laugh people use when they want to bruise without leaving a mark.

It came from Refuge.

We rounded the fountain. The Refuge door was blocked by bodies and a bucket. Aldric Voss had one boot on the intake table and the bucket jammed in the threshold like a cork. Lightning crawled over his fingers in little shows. A ring of boys in Voss blue hung on the edges of his words. Two girls looked away and didn’t move. Seraphine stood a pace off, expression smooth, eyes measuring faces and angles. A proctor watched from shade and chose not to fix it for us. Crisis Day had different rules.

Lyra stood at the threshold with her brass badge clear and her ledger flat. She kept the line moving with chalk and a steady voice. Her ears were red, the only color she let slip. Everything else was set like stone.

"Back of the line," Aldric told a mannequin boy with painted tears. He tossed the quill, caught it, tossed it again. "Refuge is full. Maybe if you bow, someone will let you in." He flicked a glance at Lyra, smiling the way a cat smiles at a small bird that won’t fly. "Faewyn, try smiling. Or is the brass supposed to make you tall?"

Thin laughter answered. Boys auditioning for each other. The sound slid over Lyra without finding purchase. She didn’t look at me. She never does when that would make it worse. She wrote another mark on the slate and said, "Keep the line clear."

I stopped a step from Aldric’s bucket. "You’re in the way."

"Valcrey," he said, delighted at the stage. "Come rescue a clerk. How noble."

"My team needs that door," I said. "Open it."

"People," he repeated, letting his gaze skim the line like it was refuse. "She keeps her little commoner parade neat. What would they do without her? Drown in ink?"

Laughs again, smaller now. Someone’s boot heel tapped twice, then stopped. A quill slipped and skittered on stone. The mannequin at the front raised its arms and then froze because a proctor at the lever killed the noise out of reflex when rooms go the wrong kind of quiet.

"Step off the threshold," I said.

He raised his voice. He needed the oxygen of it. "Do you hear, Faewyn? The duke’s spare wants me to make room for his pet scribe."

That was enough.

I let my presence go.

Not aura. Not magic. Just the weight I’ve carried through doors that wanted me dead on the other side. My lungs changed their mind about air. Shoulders loosened, chin leveled. Internal pulsed once into my heels and then went still. Every muscle remembered which orders to obey and which to ignore.

The temperature slipped without changing. The fog along the gutter looked heavier without moving. The ward hum under the shutters thinned to a tight line. Two rows back, a boy in Voss blue started a laugh and coughed instead. A girl with an elegant blade noticed her knuckles white around a rail and eased them deliberately. Someone near the fountain swallowed and tasted metal.

Aldric’s mouth began a smirk and forgot how to finish it. He looked to Seraphine for a cue. She didn’t move. He glanced at the proctor. Pierce stood on his balcony and took attendance with his eyes like a bored judge. On another rail, Cael Veyron turned his head and watched with professional attention that made the air feel cleaner. Under the Clinic sign, Liora’s fingers tightened on a band for exactly one heartbeat and then relaxed. Dorian’s gaze sharpened a notch and did not waver.

"You play at war," I said, not loud. "I’ve lived it."

Laughter didn’t just stop; it died. Breathing changed—shallower, careful, like the whole square didn’t want to be noticed by its own lungs.

Aldric’s fingers trembled once. The spark on his knuckles flickered and came back meaner, like a dog baring its teeth after it realizes it’s cornered. Pride hauled itself up over fear and dragged his jaw with it.

"Proctor," he called, voice thinner than he meant. "He’s threatening students during an evaluation."

Pierce didn’t sigh. He put a stamp on the air. "Optional confrontation module," he said, as if he were reading weather. "Self-selecting. Ward light on. Nonlethal standard. Medics present."

The ward posts brightened; a safe skin slid over the square. Saints repositioned by inches—Liora drew her kit closer to the door, Dorian leaned a fraction forward, arms still folded.

Aldric grinned like a man who’d found a plank in a river. "Hear that? Optional. One for all?" He threw his arm wide to his ring of boys. "Or are you afraid, Valcrey?"

I took a breath and looked at the circle around him. Harlan with a blade too long for his feet. Sennet with a mace that dragged him off his line. Two Voss boys who traded nerves for volume. A noble from Seraphine’s side trying to be smaller than his clothes. Seraphine herself remained where she was, watching like a person reading a map she’d drawn herself.

I stepped away from Lyra’s threshold so I wouldn’t make this about her. I put my heels where the whole square could see me. Marrow slid out of Shade and sat at my left, skull angled, still as a law. Hollow clicked once and settled on the fountain lip. The leash hummed steady against my sternum.

Lyra finally looked at me. Not pleading. Wary trust—careful, professional. Pink lived high on her cheeks, from command and attention, not romance. She lifted her slate and told the line, "Clear the door," and the door cleared.

Inside me, something old and ugly moved. The part that watched the old Armand laugh with these boys and call it strength. The part that counted the cost for everyone else. I knew better. Five on one in front of Saints is the kind of math a sensible man avoids. I heard the voice that said wait.

I ignored it.

’They need the lesson more than I need an easy day.’

I let the rest of my restraint go.

The air got heavy. Not cold exactly—dense. The shadows around the fountain sharpened. A few hands rubbed forearms without meaning to. A first-year near the back touched his own throat like he’d forgotten how to swallow. The ward posts answered my posture with a deeper, steadier hum. A coin slipped from someone’s fingers and rang on stone; no one bent to pick it up.

Aldric paled, then flushed, color fighting itself under his skin. Harlan’s blade tip dipped a thumb-width. Sennet set his feet and found out he didn’t remember how he’d planted them. One Voss boy whispered half a prayer and stopped when he heard his own voice. The noble trying to be small went very still, animal-still, like maybe stillness could make him invisible. Seraphine’s eyes narrowed a fraction, as if measuring a floor that had moved under her. Ariadne stood under an arch without blinking. She didn’t come to shield me or scold me. She kept her hands loose and let the law in her bones weigh what it had just seen.

Cael didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He watched the way soldiers watch—cataloguing angles, timing, breath. It would have been easier if he’d looked bored.

"This is taking too long," I said, loud enough for the whole square to hear. I spread my arms wide, an invitation written in flesh and shadow. "All of you. At once. Maybe then it’ll be interesting."