Kreasial stood in front of them both, her earlier grin gone. Worry sat plain on her face now, no performance in it.
"I'll be careful," she said. "But if there's a point where I can help stop a war from happening in my own home, I'm going to help. I'm not sitting this out."
"Kreasial—"
"I'm not telling my family yet." She cut Arthur off before he finished. "If I bring this home now, it's going to cause a panic. My mother would have the whole street packing bags by dinner. I need to know more first."
Arthur nodded slowly. "Fine. But listen to me." He held her eyes. "The people behind this aren't academy students. They're not rivals you spar with in a coliseum. They kill. Easily. Without a second thought about it. If you go looking, you go careful. You don't go alone."
Theodore nodded beside him, quiet, serious.
Kreasial looked at both of them a second longer. Then she nodded once, turned, and walked off into the thinning crowd.
