The chalkboard was covered in dust and the names of dead kings.
"Mr. Blackwood"—Master Sebastian—stood at the front of the room, holding a piece of chalk like a dagger.
"History," Sebastian said, his voice a dry rasp that carried to the back of the room, "is not written by the victors. That is a lie. History is written by the survivors."
He scanned the class. It was Emily's class.
The "Cold Princess" sat in the front row. Her posture was perfect. Her uniform was immaculate. Her face was a porcelain mask that gave nothing away.
Behind her sat the broken remnants of Eiden's Pack.
Harry was staring at his desk, his hands shaking slightly.
Hazel was taking notes furiously, but she looked pale, thinner than before.
Sebastian's heart ached. He saw the vacant seat in the back row where Eiden should have been. It felt like a missing tooth.
"Consider Caesar," Sebastian continued, walking down the aisle, his fake limp heavy today. "He built an empire on order. On roads. On laws. But he was killed by his own friends. Why?"
He stopped at Emily's desk.
She looked up. Her eyes were flat, dead things.
"Because he became a tyrant," Emily answered, her voice monotone. "And tyrants must be removed for the greater good."
Sebastian looked at her. He saw the echo of Akuma in her face. But he also saw the General—the man who had trained him to kill.
"Is that what you believe, Miss Cronus?" Sebastian asked softly. "That betrayal is justified if the cause is... orderly?"
"I believe," Emily said, her eyes narrowing slightly, "that loyalty to a monster makes you a monster. And removing a monster is not betrayal. It is sanitation."
The class held its breath.
Sebastian smiled. It wasn't a teacher's smile. It was a Wolf's baring of teeth.
"An interesting perspective," he said. "But be careful. Monsters are often just mirrors. When you break them... you might not like what you see in the shards."
He walked back to the front.
"Class dismissed."
The Greenhouse
It was raining again. The gray English weather matched the mood of the two spies.
Emma—"Elise"—sat on a bench in the humid warmth of the school greenhouse. She was hidden behind a wall of ferns.
She was knitting. It was a sweater now. Black wool. It was too big for her. It was sized for a boy who would never wear it.
The door creaked. Sebastian entered, shaking rain from his umbrella.
He checked the perimeter. Clear.
He sat next to her. He didn't speak for a long time. He just watched her needles click. Click-clack. Click-clack.
"You pushed her today," Emma whispered, not looking up. "I heard the rumors. You challenged the Princess in class."
"I was testing the perimeter," Sebastian said, cleaning his glasses. "I wanted to see if there was anything left of the girl Eiden wrote about."
"And?"
"She is gone," Sebastian said heavily. "Akuma has hollowed her out. She speaks with his voice. She thinks with his logic."
Emma's hands stopped. She gripped the wool.
"She killed him, Master. I see her every day. Walking the halls. Acting like she owns the world. And Eiden is... he's cold. He's alone."
Tears welled in her eyes.
"I want to hurt her," Emma admitted, her voice small and frightened. "I want to use the needles. I want to be a Wolf. But... I just feel like a little girl who lost her friend."
Sebastian put a hand on her shoulder.
"Grief is not weakness, Emma. It is the price of love. Eiden... he was the best of us. Because he felt everything. He didn't shut it off."
Sebastian looked through the glass walls of the greenhouse, toward the faculty tower where Akuma's office loomed.
"I know who the Founder is, Emma."
Emma looked up, wiping her eyes. "Akuma Cronus?"
"No," Sebastian whispered. "To the world, he is Akuma. But to me... he was the General."
Emma frowned. "The man who trained you? Who fought with Evergreen?"
"Yes. He erased his past. He erased his name. He built this fortress to hide from the very world he helped break."
Sebastian's face hardened.
"We are not just here to mourn, Emma. We are here to finish a war that started twenty years ago. Akuma thinks he killed the Wolf. He thinks he won."
Sebastian stood up. The "boring teacher" was gone. The Master of the Den stood there.
"He forgot that Wolves hunt in packs. And he forgot that ghosts... ghosts can walk through walls."
Emma asked, "Should we inform Master Durai about this?"
"No, he isn't in the right mindset right now. We keep this to ourselves"
Later that afternoon, during the chaotic change of classes, a collision occurred.
Emma, rushing with her head down, slammed into Harry.
Books went flying.
"Watch it!" a prefect shouted.
"I'm so sorry!" Emma squeaked, dropping to her knees to help gather the papers. "I'm so clumsy!"
Harry looked at her. He was terrified. He expected to be yelled at.
But as Emma handed him his physics textbook, her hand lingered on his.
She pressed something into his palm.
Harry froze. He looked at her face.
Emma didn't smile. She just looked at him with eyes that were too old, too sad, and too fierce for a "diplomat's little sister."
"Keep your head up," she whispered. "The mountains haven't forgotten you."
She stood up and ran off before Sasha or Luna could see.
Harry stood there, stunned. He slowly closed his hand around the object.
He walked to the nearest bathroom stall and locked the door. He opened his hand.
It wasn't a note.
It was a small, hand-knitted patch. Grey wool.
Embroidered in the center, in rough, black thread, was a symbol.
A Wolf's head.
Harry stared at it. His breath hitched.
He wasn't alone. Eiden was gone... but the Pack was here.
He squeezed the patch tight, tears of relief stinging his eyes.
He flushed the toilet to cover the sound of his sob.
Then, he walked out of the stall. He adjusted his glasses.
For the first time since the ship, he didn't look at the floor.
He looked at the camera in the corner of the hallway. And he nodded.
The Server Room
Harry sat in the cool, humming darkness of the school's main server room. To the rest of the school, he was just the "nerd boy," the nerd who fixed the projectors. To Emily's new regime, he was a useful tool to keep the surveillance state running. But to the Pack, he was the Watcher.
He pulled his kit onto his lap, his fingers flying across the keys. The screen illuminated his face in a pale blue glow, reflecting in his glasses.
He brought up the security feed from Hallway 4B—the site of the collision with "Elise."
He rewound the footage.
There it was. The crash. The books flying. The moment Emma's hand lingered on his. The transfer of the patch.
Harry paused the frame. He zoomed in. The gray wool was visible for a split second before his hand closed over it.
His heart hammered. If Sasha or Luna saw this... if Akuma's analysts reviewed the logs... Emma would be burned. He would be interrogated. The new "resistance" would die before it took its first breath.
Harry's fingers hovered over the keyboard.
He typed a command string.
DELETE LOG 14:45 - 14:50.
REPLACE WITH LOOP_A7 (Empty Hallway).
He hit Enter.
The footage of the meeting vanished. On the screen, the hallway was empty, silent, and safe.
Harry let out a shaky breath. He had just committed treason against the Cronus empire. And it felt... good.
He didn't stop there.
He switched camera feeds, cycling through the school.
He found Mr. Blackwood (Sebastian) near the faculty lounge. The teacher was standing too close to a restricted file cabinet, picking the lock with a paperclip.
Harry checked the guard rotation. A patrol was thirty seconds away.
He couldn't warn Sebastian. He didn't have a radio.
But he had the building.
Harry accessed the fire safety system for that corridor. He triggered a "fault" in the sprinkler sensor—not enough to soak them, but enough to set off a localized, annoying buzzer.
BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ.
On the screen, Sebastian looked up, startled. He stopped picking the lock and moved away, pretending to examine a notice board just as the guards rounded the corner. They ignored the "boring teacher" and went to check the panel.
Sebastian adjusted his glasses and walked away, safe.
Harry slumped back in his chair, a sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"I got you," he whispered to the screen.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, rough patch Emma had given him. The Wolf's head.
He pinned it to the inside of his blazer, right over his heart. It scratched against his shirt, a constant, itchy reminder.
He wasn't just a student anymore. He wasn't just a victim.
He was the eyes in the wall. He was the ghost in the machine.
And for the first time since Eiden fell, Harry wasn't afraid of the cameras.
He owned them.
Just as he was about to log off, a strange spike appeared on the network monitor.
It was a frequency signal. Low band. Very old tech.
It was coming from the North.
Harry frowned. The school's receivers shouldn't be picking up anything from that range unless it was incredibly powerful.
He tuned the digital receiver, filtering out the static of the storm and the city.
Tap... tap-tap... tap...
Morse code.
It wasn't a message for him. It was a broadcast. A shout into the void.
Harry grabbed a pencil and a scrap of paper. He decoded it as it came in, letter by letter.
T-H-E... P-A-C-K... I-S... M-O-V-I-N-G.
H-O-L-D... T-H-E... L-I-N-E.
Harry stared at the paper.
The Pack is moving.
He didn't know who sent it. He didn't know who it was for. But he knew what it meant.
The Wolves weren't gone. They weren't defeated. They were coming.
Harry folded the paper and ate it.
He turned back to his screens; his eyes sharp behind his glasses.
"Copy that," he whispered into the silence. "Holding the line."