"You told him?"
Nerissa's voice cut the hallway. It wasn't loud — it didn't have to be. Sharp, incredulous, and edged with hurt. The three of them stopped as if some invisible line had been drawn in the corridor and she stood squarely on the wrong side.
Riven didn't bother to step away from the locker he'd been leaning on; he never did. He looked as if he'd been waiting for this exact moment. "What, me? Tell him what?" His tone was all lazy amusement, but the amusement had teeth.
"You know what," Nerissa snapped. "The headmaster called us in. You told him about the lake. About what happened. Why would you do that?"
Riven's smirk sharpened. He folded his arms and said, blunt as a blade, "Why wouldn't I? You are the one who feels different and I tried helping by telling Vale what I saw." Riven words were a lie, but he felt like making the green eyed beauty mad.
Kael, who'd been standing beside her with his hands tucked neatly in his pockets, watched her quietly. Calm. A slow, private smile curved his mouth — the kind of smile that suggested he enjoyed the world's small ironies. "You're blaming him for being sensible," Kael said, voice low and neutral. He didn't step forward to fan the flames; his presence was a steady, cool current.
It seem like Kael had transformed into what she first knew him as– quiet and calm, not what he was inside the lab and God knows why he behaved like that openly?
Lucien remained an island of stillness at the end of the hall. Brooding looked good on him, like a sculpted shadow. He didn't speak. He never did when the Headmaster's summons were on the table; his silence carried weight.
Riven rolled his shoulders. "Vale's been watching. Not my fault he knew. Maybe he has ears where you don't, witch." He let the last word hang like a dare.
Nerissa's eyes flashed. "Don't call me that."
Kael's smile softened only slightly. "You told us not to make waves." He met Nerissa's gaze then, the attention quiet and almost private as if he were asking a question they didn't have words for. "We came anyway."
"Because the Headmaster called?" Nerissa challenged, not wanting to admit the relief that fluttered under her anger — the relief that someone else knew, that she wasn't only the stranger stumbling through powerless. "Or because you wanted to show up like heroes?"
Riven gave a short laugh — sharp, clipped. "Heroes don't swim in moon-glow ponds at midnight. Heroes don't drag trouble into the school. Heroes also don't get lamped. You're lucky I like dramatic entrances."
Lucien's jaw tightened. "We don't have time for this."
The three of them moved like shadows together, Nerissa trailing by a step, Kael beside her, Riven a pace ahead, and Lucien steady at the rear. Whatever Vale had in mind, it had called them close.
Headmaster Aldric Vale's office looked and felt like the owner — something always made Nerissa feel unsafe when she was inside it, but with the boys here, she felatbkind of better.. The Headmaster sat behind his wide desk, hands laced together as if he were threading patience. He didn't look surprised when they filed in. He'd never looked surprised about anything.
"Good," he said, voice even. "Take a seat."
Riven sat first, casual and arrogant. Kael chose a chair and sank in, posture perfect, eyes unreadable. Lucien remained standing near the window, still as a statue, watching the rain of distant moonlight on the stone courtyard below. Nerissa stayed in front of the desk; that's where Vale wanted her — put in the middle like an exhibit.
"You're aware of the presence in the lower ridges," Vale began. "We need someone to investigate it. An anomaly in the ley lines has been recorded. You three will go."
Riven raised a brow. "A recon? You sent us to fetch a weather report last time. What's changed?"
Vale's gaze slipped to Nerissa then. It was small — a nod without words — and it made the air tilt. "Because Miss Flair's signature resonates with the readings. We want to test the correlation."
Nerissa felt heat rise and die in one breath. "Correlation? What does that even—"
"You've been, by all accounts, a catalyst," Vale said. His voice never shifted into accusation; he wore the veneer of curiosity. "And between now and the Silver Blue Moon, patterns can form. The Council recommends a field mission to determine her alignment. A team of Alphas will accompany you."
Nerissa's mouth opened. "Alphas? I'm not an Alpha—"
"No," Vale admitted. "Which is precisely why we're assigning three Alphas. The mission is protocol. It—assists in determining factional suitability."
Riven's jaw flexed. He looked at Nerissa the way someone looks at an unsolved equation. "You know this is how they test folding people into boxes. They always do this under the name of evaluation."
Kael's voice, when he spoke, was the opposite of Riven's. Calm, level, quiet. "If you're saying this is unusual for Mooncrest to include a non-Alpha in recon, then yes. But it's also another chance to figure out what's going on. We go. We investigate. We report."
Lucien's tone cut through the room like ice. "We go because he asked. Not because Vale has charity for misplaced girls."
Vale's fingers pressed together. "Concise. Move with care. The Silver Blue Moon begins in five weeks. If her presence is indeed calling to the ley, we cannot wait."
Nerissa's heart lodged in her throat at that. "Wait — the Silver Blue Moon? That's—"
"Rare," Kael supplied softly. He wasn't teasing now; the words came out level. "An alignment that magnifies bond signals. If you are what Vale suspects, things become… amplified."
Nerissa met Kael's gaze. Calm. Reassuring. He gave her a nod that was small and private, only for her. The effect was immediate and a little disarming — she felt steadier, if only for a breath.
Riven rolled his shoulders, annoyance painted across his face. "So we go on a mission that's usually Alpha-only to 'test' her. Seems like they're eager to see what'll happen when a spark meets a powder keg."
Vale's expression hardened, but not into anger. "It's precaution." He pushed a file across the desk. "You leave at dawn in two days. Prepare yourselves. And now, because of the… commotion during your Biology session, you will also serve detention."
Nerissa blinked: detention? For the lake? "We argued," she said, heat flaring at the memory of the lab. "You can't—"
"You can and you will," Vale said. There was a courtesy to his words, but the courtesy had teeth. "Protocol and precedent. The mission is necessary. The detention is discipline. You will do both. Dismissed."
They left the office with this floating like a stone in Nerissa's gut: mission in two days; Silver Blue Moon in five weeks. Something major was shifting. And Vale had that air of someone arranging pieces for a game he expected to win.
The detention hall at Mooncrest was less of a punishment and more of a theatre for adolescent misery. A broad room with benches and training dummies, it smelled faintly of sweat and waxed wood. Professor Garrick — a solid wolf of a man with a voice like gravel and a patience like a stone — expected them to quiet themselves and work. Which they did… eventually.
Riven made sure to break the silence. His tone: sharp-edged, authoritative. "First rule of detention: don't sulk. Second rule: don't bore me."
Kael sat beside Nerissa with an easy grace. He didn't poke or prod; he placed himself like an anchor. He said nothing at first. His composure was almost irritating in how effective it was at keeping things calm.
"So what's it like," Riven said, swiveling to look at her, "to be the star of the headmaster's curiosity?"
Nerissa blew out a breath. "Like someone keeps kicking me under a table and calling it a favor."
"You get used to it," Riven said. "Unless you don't."
Kael's hand brushed Nerissa's sleeve in the way of an absent comfort — small, deliberate. He then looked at her and offered, quietly, "If it helps, I'll be there. Not to lecture. To watch." His voice remained low, conversational. The words landed different than Riven's scorn: a promise disguised as statement.
She wanted to glare and yet wanted to nod. Complex things curled in her chest, not easily named.
The real fun started when Garrick assigned them to clean up tool racks and mop the training mats. Riven took over the head-scrubbing while narrating everything like an executioner telling a joke. Kael moved methodically, his broom strokes exact, occasionally flicking an ironic comment that had no bite — only shade.
Nerissa found herself sniping, but the jabs were lighter now, warmed by company. "You two act like you're always together," she said, hands in a bucket of soapy water.
Riven snapped a towel at her for effect. "We're not always together. Mostly we are."
"That's reassuring," she muttered.
Kael moved closer when she had to wring something out. "Hey," he said in that quiet way again. "Take your time. This isn't a race."
She frowned. "Who said it was?"
"You look like someone sprinting even when you walk," Kael observed. "You carry the world like a shopping bag you refuse to put down."
Nerissa almost said something sharp back — then paused. There was something about the way he said it: no judgement, only observation. It was invasive and strangely intimate. "I can put it down," she said instead.
He watched her, eyes an even, steady green. "I know."
Riven snorted, shaking his head at the two of them. "Ugh. Sentiments. Save it for after the apocalypse."
Their cadence of annoyance, teasing, and small care filled the hours. It was ridiculous. It felt, in its small way, like a kind of home.
At one point, a mop-head flicked across the room and knocked a bucket of cleaning solution. Nerissa flinched reflexively, and a glass jar clinked free and rolled toward Kael. He caught it with exacting ease. His calm, even posture as he righted it made the girls in the back row whisper. Kael, however, treated the applause like a cleared throat — nothing more than an inconvenience.
"You could show off less," Nerissa muttered when she returned the mop.
"I could," Kael agreed, mild as water. "But it's a public service."
Riven's snark sharpened. "You and your morals."
"Not morals," Kael said. "Choice."
At the end of their sentence, Garrick leaned in the doorway, looking over them with a wolfish frown. He didn't need to shout. The point was made.
When the work finished, the three of them slumped on a low bench, breath misting in the chilly air. Nerissa wrapped her arms around her knees. The quiet that settled was heavy, the kind that carries thoughts like stones.
Riven's voice was low. "You wanted answers once. You want them now?"
She shrugged. "I want people to stop treating me like an exhibit. I want—" She stopped. The words didn't come out clean; they were messy, the way her life had been since she arrived.
Kael turned to look at her, eyes steady. "We'll get you whatever you want. Maybe not in time to stop Vale's machinations. But we'll make sure you don't walk into it blind.
It was comforting. It made the hollow ache in her chest flicker, like a candle finding air.
Riven watched them both, half amused and half watchful. "We're going on a mission together," he said. "Try not to die."
She looked at him, incredulous. "Very supportive."
He shrugged, mouth tilting. "That's my brand."
They left detention under the same moon that had watched Nerissa's lake-dream a few nights earlier. Their shadows stretched long and braided behind them. The mission waited like a closed fist in the horizon, and the Silver Blue Moon was a promise and a threat.
Nerissa walked back to the dorm with her thoughts heavy. Kael fell into step at her side, quiet again, a companion who didn't need to supply constant commentary to be present.
"You ready?" he asked softly.
She thought of Vale's words, of the whispering water.
She answered, uncertain and defiant: "I don't know. But I'm not going to be anyone's pawn."
Kael's hand brushed hers for the briefest second. "Then don't let them make you one."
They walked on, and the night folded around them like a promise broken in half.
Nerissa then remembered something and faced Kael,
"Do you have a split personality?"
Kael gave a smile that almost broke into laughter.
"No."
"But the way you are behaving now, isn't how you were in the lab." Nerissa said with a glaring look at Kael. "Don't you know that the girls were throwing daggers at me? And the last thing I want is to make female enemies." Nerissa looked like she would cry, not serious though, at the end of her sentence.
Kael laughed, controlled and leaned towards her, whispering in her ear, "It's the best way to keep flies of you and me."
Nerissa looked dumbfounded, like a cat.
Ahed of them, Riven clenched his hand, his jaw showing angry lines, and eyes, showing traces of jealousy.