The dorm room was a silent tomb filled with mana.
I, Ronan Sunstrider, sat in the centre of the mental construct, holding the threads. It was a strange existence, being the lighthouse keeper for a sleeping body. Murphy was deep in the void of sleep—a rare, dreamless peace he desperately needed after the manic energy of the heist.
Against the wall sat the three 'Banker' clones. Murphy had wisely stashed the sixty constructs of gold into the Inventory to keep them safe—but the clones themselves had to exist to maintain the existence of the loot. They sat in a light meditative trance, keeping their forms solid and stable while cycling mana.
And I was bored out of my mind.
I checked the mental clock. Midnight. The witching hour.
I looked at the window. The moon was high and bright over the Academy grounds. The campus was asleep.
It was time. I created a new clone and stood up, flexing hands that felt crisp and responsive. I was wearing Murphy's grey tunic and cloak as I slipped out the door, moving with a silence that Murphy, for all his paranoid scuttling, had never quite mastered. I didn't skulk; I flowed.
The night air was cool. I stuck to the shadows, moving across the grounds toward the Combat Hall.
There is always a weak point. I circled the massive stone structure until I found a ventilation grate near the foundation, obscured by overgrown ivy. It was small, tight, and, judging by the lack of rust on the screws, likely used by students sneaking out for illicit duels.
I slipped inside.
The hall was a cavern of shadows, the moonlight filtering through the high windows to illuminate the silent rows of weapon racks and the looming obsidian arches of the Pocket Dimensions. It smelled of oil, steel, and old sweat.
A single light burned in the Master's office at the far end of the hall.
I walked toward it. I didn't hide my footsteps. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of my boots on the stone floor echoed in the empty space.
I reached the open door and leaned against the frame.
Master Elrend was sitting behind a desk cluttered with broken practice swords and requisition forms. A bottle of expensive vintage wine sat open before him. He wasn't asleep. He was staring into a glass, his eyes unfocused, lost in a memory that wasn't happy.
He didn't look up.
"Curfew is strictly enforced, boy," Elrend rasped, his voice rough but steady. "Go back to bed before I expel you for boring me."
"I couldn't sleep," I said.
My voice—Murphy's voice—sounded different when I used it. Deeper. Calmer.
Elrend swirled his wine. "Insomnia is a guilty conscience. What did you do? Steal something?"
"I want to spar," I said, with a lot more confidence than I felt. I wasn't really sure why I was here. This wasn't the smart play. The smart play would be to keep our heads down, and I was taking a risk. A big one.
Elrend finally looked up. He fixed me with a piercing glare from two sharp, grey eyes that had seen too much war. He took in the grey clothes, the relaxed posture. He snorted.
"It's midnight. I am drinking. And you are the boy who laid down and died for a bully this afternoon. I don't waste steel on cowards."
He waved a hand dismissively. "Get out. The sight of you makes my wine taste like vinegar."
I didn't move. I looked at the elf—this cynical shadow of the bright-eyed squire I had once known. I remembered him standing on the battlements, holding the banner while the sky rained fire. He had been so proud then. So full of hope.
"You're right," I said softly. "The steel is cold. The body is tired."
I took a step into the room.
"But iron rusts in the rain, Elrend."
The glass stopped halfway to Elrend's mouth.
The silence that followed was absolute. It wasn't the silence of an empty room; it was the silence of a heart stopping.
Elrend sat perfectly still. The liquid in his glass didn't even tremble. Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the glass to the desk.
He stared at me. His gaze wasn't bored anymore. It was sharp, predatory, and filled with a sudden, terrible intensity.
"What did you say?" he whispered.
"It's an old saying," I said, keeping my face impassive. "From the Third Age. Before the Spire. Before the Empire."
Elrend stood up. He grabbed his cane. He didn't look like a drunk old teacher anymore. He looked like a soldier who had just heard a ghost.
"That is not a saying," Elrend hissed, limping around the desk to stand in front of me. "That was the passcode for the Southern Gate during the Siege. It hasn't been spoken in a hundred years."
He leaned in, searching my face. He looked for Murphy—the scared, scrappy kid from the slums who had folded against Garrick hours ago.
But I didn't give him Murphy. I gave him the Paladin. I squared my shoulders. I held his gaze with the weight of a man who had commanded armies.
"History books are thorough," I lied.
"No book I've ever heard of." Elrend countered softly.
He gripped his cane until his knuckles turned white.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a student who wants to spar," I repeated. "Inside the Arch. Where the world can't see."
Elrend stared at me for a long, agonising minute. He was warring with himself—the logic that said this was impossible, against the instinct that screamed he was standing in front of a truth he couldn't name.
Finally, he let out a short, sharp breath. He grabbed a training sword from the rack on the wall and tossed it to me.
I caught it by the hilt without looking.
Elrend's eyes tracked the movement.
"Fine," Elrend whispered. "One bout. But if you are playing games, boy... I will not hold back."
"I'm counting on it," I said.
I turned and walked toward the nearest obsidian arch. The black mist swirled, hungry and waiting. I stepped through, and the world dissolved into shadow.
The transition was violent. The cold static of the archway stripped away the smell of dust and old oil, replacing it with the sterile, ozone-heavy air of the Pocket Dimension.
We stood on a suspended platform of white stone, surrounded by a swirling void of endless grey mist. It was a blank canvas for violence.
I didn't have time to breathe.
Elrend didn't wait for a bow. He didn't wait for a signal. The moment his boots hit the stone, he exploded into motion.
He moved like smoke in a gale. His style was the 'Drunken Willow'—a deceptive, fluid form that relied on erratic swaying to mask lethal intent. He looked like he was stumbling, his centre of gravity shifting wildly, but every step was a calculated feint.
Whish.
His training sword snapped out, aiming for my temple.
I didn't flinch. I stepped into the swing.
My blade came up in a rigid, vertical block—the Solar High-Guard. Steel met steel with a ringing clash that vibrated down my arm.
Clang.
Elrend didn't stop. He used the recoil to spin, his blade whipping around for a low strike at my knee. It was the exact same opening Garrick had left exposed, a cruel test to see if I would take the bait or defend the limb.
I dropped my guard, catching his blade on my cross-guard and twisting my wrists.
Lock.
For a second, we were frozen, blades crossed, faces inches apart.
"Who taught you?!" Elrend roared, his frustration mounting as his attacks met a wall of perfect defence. "Why did you steal the name 'Sunstrider'?!"
He broke the lock with a savage kick to my midsection.
I took the hit. The clone's mana-structure shuddered, the impact rippling through the construct, but I held the form together. I slid backwards, resetting my stance.
Elrend came at me again, a whirlwind of strikes. High, low, left, right. He was testing my perimeter, looking for the amateur.
I gave him nothing. I fought with the economy of a man who had spent a lifetime preserving energy. I parried. I deflected. I didn't attack; I simply refused to be hit.
"That stance!" Elrend shouted, swinging wildly. "The Sunstrider form died with him! How could you possibly know the form?!"
He feinted a thrust to the throat, then dropped his shoulder for the 'Viper's Bite'—a hidden, upward strike with the pommel of his sword intended to shatter the jaw. It was a dirty, brilliant move invented in the trenches of the Last War.
It was also my move.
I didn't block it. I dropped my sword.
I reached out with my empty left hand. As Elrend drove the pommel upward, I caught his wrist. I didn't just grab it; I twisted my thumb into the nerve cluster between the radius and ulna.
The Aethelgard Trap.
Elrend's hand spasmed involuntarily. His sword clattered to the white stone.
I didn't finish the move—which would have involved snapping his wrist and driving my own elbow into his throat. I just held him there, frozen.
The silence in the void was deafening.
Elrend stared at his empty hand. He stared at my grip on his wrist. He looked up, his sharp eyes wide, stripping away the years of drink and cynicism.
"Impossible," Elrend whispered.
I released him. I stepped back, picking up my sword and sheathing it in a single, fluid motion.
"You always dropped your left shoulder before the Viper," I said softly. "I told you a thousand times, Elrend. It's a tell."
Elrend staggered back as if I'd physically struck him. He dropped his cane. His hands shook, hovering over his chest.
"No," he breathed, backing away. "Ronan Sunstrider disappeared a hundred years ago..."
"I was banished," I said quietly. "Cast out. Cursed to die a thousand times in a world without light."
"A thousand times?" Elrend's brow furrowed. "It has been a hundred years, Ronan. Not a thousand."
"Time moves differently where I was," I said. "For you, a century of grief. For me..."
I looked at him then. I really looked at him, stripping away the shock and the grime. In my memory, Elrend was a bright-eyed Lieutenant. Now, standing before me, he looked ancient, a ruin of a man.
But the math didn't add up. High Elves didn't fade this quickly. By the standards of his people, Elrend should be in his absolute physical prime.
I realised then that the silver-white hair wasn't age; it was stress, bleached by decades of nightmares. The dullness in his grey eyes wasn't the fog of time; it was the exhaustion of a man who hadn't slept peacefully since the walls fell. The tremor in his hands wasn't frailty; it was the poison he'd been feeding himself every day to keep the memories at bay.
He wasn't old. He was just broken. He had let himself rot because he believed the world had ended.
Elrend looked at me, seeing the grey tunic, the unfamiliar face of Murphy.
"This body," Elrend whispered. "It's not yours."
"No," I said. "I was brought back by the gods. I cannot give you more details at this time."
I stepped forward.
"The world thinks Ronan Sunstrider is dead, and for now, he must remain dead. The Inquisition is hunting us. If they find me, they unmake me."
I looked him in the eye.
"I need an ally. I need someone who remembers the Old Ways. I need my Lieutenant."
"You said 'us'. Who is with you?"
"It is complicated. I will explain in time."
Elrend stared at me. He looked down at his shaking hands. He looked at the flask of wine protruding from his pocket—the crutch that had held him up for so long.
Slowly, he reached into his robe. He pulled out the silver flask.
He unscrewed the cap.
"The wine helps me forget the screams," Elrend murmured, his voice thick with self-loathing. "I have spent decades in this Academy trying to drown the memory of the day the light failed."
He turned the flask upside down.
The dark red liquid poured out onto the pristine white stone of the arena floor, splashing like blood. He held it there, watching the stream, until the last drop fell.
He dropped the empty flask. It rang against the stone like a bell.
Elrend straightened up.
As he did, a strange thing happened. The stoop vanished from his shoulders. The tremors in his hands ceased instantly. The dull, muddy film that had seemed to coat his presence evaporated.
He didn't look like a drunk old teacher anymore. Without the weight of the bottle dragging him down, the years seemed to melt away, revealing the sharp, lethal lines of the warrior underneath. He wasn't frail. He was in his prime. He was dangerous.
"The Inquisition has already started sniffing around the Academy," Elrend said, his voice crisp and clear for the first time in an age. "I will handle them for the time being, but you must promise to tell me everything. Soon."
"Thank you, and I promise," I said.
"Do not thank me yet, Commander," Elrend said, a grim smile touching his lips. "Just tell me... the debt? Is it handled?"
"We have a plan," I said. "It is good to see you again, old friend."
I turned to the portal.
"Ronan," Elrend called out.
I paused.
"Welcome home, Commander."
I stepped through the mist, leaving the past behind, and now, we had a veteran covering our flank.
The game was finally starting to look fair.
Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise…
The song didn't start with a bang. It started with a pulse. A low, rhythmic thrumming of a kick-drum that synced perfectly with the clack-clack-clack of iron wheels on steel rails.
Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies…
I opened my eyes. I was crouching in the open doorway of a wooden boxcar, the dry wind of the American West whipping grit into my face. The landscape outside was a blurred painting of ochre dust and scrub brush, bathed in the harsh, high-contrast light of high noon.
It felt… heavy. Familiar.
I blinked, trying to place the sensation. I remembered this heat. I remembered the itch of the wool duster against my neck. This wasn't just a dream; it was an echo. Life number… what? Two hundred? Three hundred? The details were smeared like wet ink, but the feeling of impending doom was crystal clear.
The soundtrack, however, was definitely not from the 1800s.
The Chain, I thought, recognising the brooding atmosphere instantly.
Ronan couldn't reach me deep in this sleep—but his presence was there in the music. He was the DJ of my subconscious, broadcasting Fleetwood Mac directly into the memory to pull me back to the surface.
I looked down. I was cradling a heavy glass bottle filled with a thick, syrupy liquid that wobbled terrifyingly with every jolt of the train.
Nitroglycerin.
"Easy now, Slick," a scarred man in a duster grunted from the corner of the car. He spat tobacco juice out the door. "Don't go getting the shakes. We blow that safe in ten miles."
I nodded, adjusting my grip on the sweating explosive. I remembered him. Or a version of him. Dutch? Bill? The name was gone, but I remembered he snored like a chainsaw.
I leaned out slightly, watching the locomotive smoke drift back over the cars. It felt cool. Dangerous.
Then, the music changed.
The brooding vocals cut out. The guitar faded.
Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum…
The iconic bass riff kicked in. Fast. Driving. Relentless.
I saw movement on the horizon. Riders. A dozen of them, galloping hard out of a ravine, matching the train's speed. They were waving rifles.
"The boys are here!" the scarred man yelled, grabbing his repeater. "They're stopping the train!"
I looked ahead. The track wasn't clear. A massive pile of boulders blocked the line.
The train whistle screamed, harmonising with the electric guitar solo that just exploded in my head.
My stomach dropped. Not from fear, but from the sudden, mathematical realisation of how spectacularly fucking stupid these people were.
'Wait,' I thought, staring at the boulders. 'You gave me a bottle of liquid shock-sensitive death... and then you blocked the tracks?'
It was a plan designed by a toddler with a crayon and absolutely no common sense.
SCREEEEECH.
The engineer slammed the emergency brakes.
It wasn't a stop; it was a collision with physics. The iron wheels locked, screaming against the rails in a shower of molten sparks. The boxcar bucked like a dying horse.
Newton took the wheel. The train stopped. Everything inside the train did not.
The scarred man went flying out the door, flailing like a rag doll. I was thrown forward, my boots sliding on the vibrating wood, turned into a human projectile by the sheer incompetence of my own team.
Time dilated. The guitar solo wailed.
I watched, helpless, as the bottle of nitroglycerin slipped from my sweat-slicked fingers. It hung in the air, a beautiful, deadly jewel, rotating slowly as the floor rushed up to meet it.
'Morons,' was my final thought.
"Oh, fu—"
The bottle kissed the floorboards.
BOOM.
The explosion didn't just tear the train apart; it tore the memory apart. The white fire erased the desert, the music, and the bandits in a single, deafening millisecond.
I sat up in bed with a violent gasp, clutching my chest, the phantom heat of the blast lingering on my skin like a sunburn.
'The Bursar's office opens in ten minutes,' Ronan said, checking the internal clock.
'How long until they mix the gold in with a larger pile?' I asked.
'Standard accounting practices suggest a midday vault transfer,' Ronan calculated. 'Once our fifty coins are mixed into the Academy's main treasury, they lose their individual identity. If fifty coins vanish from a pile of ten thousand later tonight... It's a clerical error, not a crime. We need to keep the engine running until at least 2:00 PM.'
Ronan's usual moral outrage was suspiciously absent. I figure he knew the debt was bullshit to begin with since the crystal would heal itself anyway. I decided not to question it—you don't interrupt a Paladin when he's finally ignoring the rules.
The Bursar's office was a room designed to make you feel small. The skeletal clerk from enrolment day sat behind his high podium, stamping forms with the rhythmic violence of a metronome.
I stepped up. I didn't say a word. I just dropped the canvas sack on the desk.
THUD.
The clerk paused. He opened the bag. He counted the coins. He checked the weight. He bit one.
It dented.
He grunted, scribbling in his ledger. "That takes care of this week, Sunstrider. See you again next week," he droned. "Next."
'How did that bureaucrat know it was us? He didn't even look up!' Ronan exclaimed.
'I don't think there's anyone else scheduled to drop off 50 gold crowns today,' I replied.
I walked out of the office, turned the corner into the main corridor—and ran straight into a wall of crimson silk.
Henry Black was leaning against a pillar, peeling an apple with a knife that looked sharp enough to shave a ghost. The hulking shadow of Knuckles loomed behind him.
"Castian," Henry smiled, slicing a piece of apple. "It's Friday."
My stomach dropped. I had paid the school, but I hadn't paid the shark.
I slumped my shoulders, letting the "arrogant rich kid" mask slip into "crushed disappointment."
"Henry," I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Look... about the arrangement."
Henry's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Don't tell me you forgot the bag."
"I got the bag," I lied, my voice trembling with frustration. "I showed it to the Old Man. I showed him the profit. I did exactly what you said."
"And?"
"And he laughed at me," I spat bitterly. "He took the twenty gold. He took the profit. He said it was about time I started paying back the family. Then he kicked me out."
I looked up at Henry, showing him empty hands.
"I have nothing. He kept it all. The trust fund is still locked."
Henry stopped eating the apple. He stared at me for a long, cold moment. He was weighing the lie. It was plausible—rich fathers were notoriously cruel. But it was also inconvenient.
"That is a tragic story, Castian," Henry said softly. "Truly. But I am not a charity. You borrowed twenty. You owe twenty-five."
"I can't pay you today," I said. "I'm tapped out."
Henry stepped closer. He smelled of expensive cologne and menace.
"Then the terms change," Henry said. "The 'Friends and Family' rate has expired. You are now on the 'High Risk' plan."
He held up three fingers.
"Thirty gold. Due Sunday at midnight. That gives you two days to find a new rich relative, or sell a kidney."
He patted my cheek with the flat of the knife.
"And Castian? If you miss this one... Knuckles won't just break your spirit. He'll make sure you limp for the rest of the semester. Do we have an understanding?"
"Sunday," I whispered. "I'll get it."
"See that you do."
Henry pushed off the pillar and walked away, Knuckles trailing behind him like a storm cloud.
I leaned against the wall, exhaling slowly.
'Thirty gold,' I thought. 'In two days.'
'The debt trap,' Ronan noted grimly. 'He keeps raising the ceiling until you drown.'
'Then we'd better start swimming,' I said, pushing off the wall. 'It's raining. Perfect weather for laundry.'
Back in the dorm, the atmosphere was frantic.
Finn had delivered the goods moments earlier—a large box sat on my bed. Inside was a suit of black and purple leather, tailored to be sleek, mobile, and utterly anonymous. The hood had silver bells sewn into the lining, capable of a cheerful jingle or silence depending on how you moved. The mask was a masterpiece of porcelain and paint—a smiling, stylised Jester with hollow eyes.
'Showtime,' I said.
I stripped off my tunic and pulled on the leather. It fit like a second skin. I pulled the hood up, adjusted the mask, and looked in the mirror.
Murphy was gone. There was only The Jester.
'Cast,' I commanded.
I drew on the mana reservoir. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Three clones appeared in the room. Because I was wearing the suit, they appeared wearing the suit. The duplicate leather gleamed with mana-light, indistinguishable from the real thing.
'It worked,' Ronan cheered. 'Three runners for the price of one suit.'
I added the black bags to our Inventory so the clones could pull them out at any time.
'Listen up,' I told them—told myself. 'The target is the Dining Hall corridor. It's raining hard. The mud is our friend. We don't speak. We don't haggle. We are mysterious, efficient, and expensive.'
The clones nodded, the bells on their hoods jingling softly. I removed the outfit, dressed in my normal clothes, and headed to the Dining Hall while the clones slipped out the window.
The corridor outside the Grand Dining Hall was a choke point. Every student had to pass through it to get to lunch. And today, thanks to the storm, the courtyard leading up to it was a mud pit.
A single Jester stood in the shadows of a recessed archway and waited while my clones were strategically placing business cards on every chair in the hall. I stood in the crowd, doing everything to pull attention to what was happening when we made our move.
The doors opened. Students streamed in, shaking off umbrellas and cursing the weather. Their cloaks were splattered with mud. Their boots were caked.
Then, she arrived.
Vespera Winter-Moon swept in from the rain. She looked furious. A passing carriage had splashed her. The hem of her pristine, silver-threaded House Aurelius cloak was ruined—soaked in thick, brown sludge.
She stopped in the middle of the corridor, staring down at the stain with the expression of someone who was about to murder a coachman.
"Ruined," she hissed. "This is silk weave! It will take three days for the Academy laundry to ruin it further!"
The clone stepped out of the shadows.
Jingle.
The sound of the bells cut through the chatter. Vespera looked up.
She saw a figure in black and purple leather with an eerie, frozen smiling mask. He stepped forward, bowing deeply, but didn't say a word.
He snapped his fingers, and suddenly another Jester appeared next to him. The second clone stepped forward and shook out a large, black velvet bag with gold drawstrings. He held it open.
Vespera stared at them. "What is this?"
He gestured to her muddy cloak, then to the bag. He made a 'put it in' motion.
I started nudging students and pointing at what was happening.
Vespera hesitated. She looked at the mud. She looked at the bag. She looked at the crowd of students watching the strange performance.
"You want... my cloak?" she asked, confused. I nodded once from the crowd, though she was looking at the Jesters.
Curiosity—and desperation—won out.
"Fine," Vespera huffed. "It is ruined anyway."
She unclasped the heavy, sodden cloak and dropped it into the velvet bag.
The clone put his hand inside as if to move the cloak into the right place.
This was the trick. Inside the bag, his hand was touching the cloak.
'Inventory,' the clone commanded silently.
Schluck.
The cloak vanished from inside the bag into the void storage.
Inside the Inventory, I felt the item appear. The mud was sorted instantly, ejected into a waste pile in the void. The water was pulled out. The silk was left pristine, dry, and perfectly pressed by the stasis field.
The clone opened the portal again, and the cloak reappeared inside the velvet bag in the clone's hand. Then came the misdirection. The clone closed the bag and paused for a few seconds, looking up at the sky. Then, he bowed again and opened the bag.
Pulling the cleaned cloak out, it flowed like water. It was spotless. It was dry. It looked brand new.
The corridor went silent. Vespera's jaw dropped. She reached out and touched the fabric.
"It's... warm," she whispered. "And dry. How?"
The Jester didn't answer. He stepped forward and produced a small, stiff card between two gloved fingers, and he flipped it to her.
She caught it and read it aloud.
"The Jesters. Bag it. Tag it. Cleaned instantly. One Gold." On the other side, it also said where and when a Jester could be found every day. I was sure to also add some more small print with things like "limited offer" and how the bags would work.
The clone bowed again, offering up the velvet bag. This part was the key to making sure the students didn't think the bag was magical.
Behind us, the corridor erupted.
"Did you see that?!"
"One second! It took one second!"
"Hey! Jester! Wait! My boots!"
'Hook set,' Ronan said, sounding delighted. 'Now we reel them in.'
'We're in business,' I grinned, watching the show unfold. 'Let's get that gold.'