The elevator drops us back down into the tower with a soft whoosh, and before we can even hit the main halls my comm is nagging: 0:34 to assembly.
"Plenty of time," Leo declares. "If we run."
"We are not running in formal corridors," Lía says.
We make it halfway across the courtyard before Leo's band pings again.
He glances at it, eyes lighting up with the exact expression of a man about to cause problems on purpose.
"Okay, that's my cue," he says, already edging away. "Radiant wants me in the front row for 'optics.' I have to go pretend I'm photogenic and not a menace. Sol, I'll see you inside."
He taps two fingers to his brow in a mock salute and peels off down another path before Lía can scold him.
"Leo!" she calls.
He just waves over his shoulder and disappears into a knot of gold-trimmed jackets.
Lía sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"He will be late," she says. "He will also somehow arrive exactly as the cameras pan the crowd. It is a talent."
We cut through a side path toward the Grand Hall. Banners hang from the arches—House colors, the Aeternum crest, a huge holo of President Harrow looking benevolently determined. Students stream in groups: Radiant in warm tones, Veil in muted ones, Hearth in earth shades, Forge in their cooler palettes. My stomach does little nervous flips the closer we get.
At the side entrance, Lía slows, turning to face me.
"This is where we part," she says. "I need to check in backstage, confirm my remarks are still timed to the second, argue with AV about the lighting—"
"Of course you do," I say, managing a smile.
"You'll sit with Forge," she goes on, gesturing toward the doors. "Look for the blue sigils; they've blocked out a section by House. Do not worry about the cameras. They will be trained on the stage, not the audience."
"So just… act natural," I say. "Right. No pressure."
She hesitates, then rests a hand briefly on my shoulder.
"You'll be fine, Sol," she says. "If you feel overwhelmed, focus on something concrete. Your breathing, your jacket, the fact that Leo is absolutely going to trip over a cable eventually. It helps."
I huff a laugh.
"Got it. Find comfort in impending sibling humiliation."
"Precisely." Her mouth twitches. "I'll see you from the stage."
And then she's gone, slipping through a side door with the composure of someone who has walked into a thousand spotlights.
I take a breath, turn toward the main entrance—
—and walk straight into a wall of muscle.
A hand comes out, bracing against the frame just above my shoulder, stopping me dead.
I look up into a familiar face: older than Leo, rougher than the posters, jaw shadowed, lightning scars curling along his forearms where his sleeves are rolled. He's leaned against the doorway like he owns it, one foot crossed over the other, watching the flow of students with bored predatory focus.
Rafe Aranda.
Up close, his eyes are sharper than they looked from the training yard.
"So," he drawls, gaze flicking over my tag, "this is the famous Archive."
For half a second, my brain tries to decide between fight, flight, or babble.
Babble wins.
"Ohhh," I say, eyes lighting up. "You're the person Leo kept mentioning!"
His brows climb a notch.
"Hi!" I blurt. "I'm Sol. You're their brother?"
He just stares at me for a beat, like I've answered the wrong question on a test he didn't tell me we were taking. Then his mouth slants into a not-quite-smile.
"Yup," he says. "Oldest disappointment of the Aranda line. Rafael. Rafe, if you're going to be chirping my name at family dinners."
"I wasn't planning on chirping anything at any dinners, but… noted?"
He huffs a laugh through his nose, more exhale than anything.
"You really are fresh off the bus," he murmurs.
His eyes drop to my tag again: VEGA, MARISOL – ARCHIVE ECHO – HOUSE FORGE – S-CLASS POTENTIAL (PROVISIONAL).
"So. Sol Vega. S-class, Archive, Forge. Living in the tower. Personal tech suite. Joint custody of the twins."
The way he says it makes it sound like a list of charges.
"I mean, yeah," I say slowly. "That's… me?"
Rafe shifts, casually blocking the doorway with one broad shoulder. People flow around us, casting sideways looks and speeding up; nobody wants to get within arm's reach of a loaded Rafe.
"Must be nice," he says. "Go from nothing to the top of the tower in one letter. S-class. Suite. Aranda escort. Let me guess: the Forge advisor tripped over herself to call you 'our Archive' ten times in a row?"
I frown.
"She… welcomed me to the House? Explained protocols? I don't—"
"Protocols," he echoes, rolling the word like a marble between his teeth. "Yeah. You're going to hear that one a lot. Protocols and potential and how special you are."
His gaze sharpens, pinning me.
"Here's the thing, Scholarship," he says, voice dropping lower. "That glow around you? It makes people stupid. They forget you can blow up just as easily as you can shine. And when you do, guess who cleans up."
I look around, suddenly aware of the wiring in the walls, the soft hum of the lights.
"I'm… not planning on blowing up," I say. "I barely know how to use any of this. That's kind of the point of being here?"
He snorts.
"Sure. And you think anyone's going to let you learn at a normal pace? You've got S-class stamped on your file and the Director's family hanging off your arms. This whole place is going to be leaning on you to perform until you crack or you prove you're worth the fuss."
Something about his tone is familiar in a way I don't want to think about—pressure, expectation, people looking at you like a math problem instead of a person. I swallow.
"Look, I didn't ask to—"
"That's the thing," he cuts in. "You never have to ask. It just lands in your lap. Suite, assistant, sponsorships. People tripping over themselves to protect the precious Archive."
My cheeks heat.
"I didn't know about any of that until, like, an hour ago," I say. "I—my parents are F-class. We lived above a laundromat. There was no 'lap' for things to land in, okay?"
Something flickers in his expression at the word F-class, gone too fast to name.
"Right," he says flatly. "The sob story. Perfect branding."
I stare at him.
"You don't even know me."
"Don't need to," he says. "I know the pattern. This school loves a narrative. 'From nothing to S-class.' 'New star of Aeternum.' 'Archive joins Aranda legacy.' They'll eat you alive and call it opportunity."
My heart does that tight, angry twist.
"Then maybe you should be pissed at them, not me."
He actually grins at that, sharp and humorless.
"Oh, believe me, I am," he says. "But you're standing in front of the door, Scholarship. And you're the one they just dropped in the middle of my family like a shiny little bomb."
We're too close now; I can see the faint blue-thread scars along his forearms, like old lightning trying to remember the way out. The air around him feels prickly, static building in the walls.
Students are definitely staring now, giving us a wide berth.
"I'm not trying to steal anything," I say, forcing myself not to take a step back. "I just got here. I'm still figuring out which way is up."
His jaw flexes.
"Yeah. That's what scares me."
He pushes off the frame, leaning in just a fraction, voice dropping to something I can feel in my bones.
"You want some actual advice, Vega?" he says. "Don't let them turn you into a mascot. Don't start thinking you're untouchable just because the twins like you and Mother picked out your curtains. You're not Aranda blood. You're not even on the board yet. You're just—"
He reaches out and taps his knuckles lightly against my shoulder, like a period at the end of the sentence.
—And the world detonates.
It's like a switch flips under my skin. Heat slams through my veins, not like panic this time but like raw current—buzzing, burning, too bright to think around. The lights in the corridor flicker; the hairs on my arms stand up. Somewhere, far away, someone yells.
"Rafe, what did you—"
I don't hear the rest. There's this click in my head, the same as with Alice but ten times louder: a name, a file, slamming into place.
Impact Current.
C-class. Draws charge from infrastructure. Overclocked nervous system. Side effects: tremors, migraines, syncope.
My eyes flare gold.
I can feel it—the hum in the walls, the electricity racing through the lights, crawling into me through the contact point where his hand touched my shoulder.
"Sol," Rafe says sharply. He's closer now, but he sounds farther away. "Hey. Breathe. Let go."
"I—I can't," I wheeze. My chest is tight, every inhale like pulling on barbed wire. "What's—what's happening—"
I stagger back, breaking contact, but it's too late; the current is in me now, boiling under my skin with nowhere to go. My comm band screams a warning I can't read. The air smells like ozone and hot metal. Hands reach for me—someone from behind, someone from the side.
The touch makes it worse; the charge claws at them, desperate for exit.
"Everyone back!" Rafe bellows. "Move—"
Something snaps.
My fingers spasm and electricity arcs out, blue-white and wild, leaping from my hands to the nearest metal surface. It hits a light fixture; the bulbs explode in a shower of sparks. A section of the wall paneling blackens, circuits frying. Students scream, scramble away.
A Hearth kid throws up a shield; the arc skates off it and slams into the floor instead, leaving a scorched spiderweb pattern.
"Vega!" a voice—maybe Leo's, maybe someone else's—shouts from somewhere in the chaos. "Sol, drop it, drop it—"
"I don't—know how—" I gasp.
My whole body is shaking now, muscles locking and unlocking. My teeth chatter—not from cold, but from the sheer force rattling up my spine. Another arc rips free, shooting up along the wall, racing across a line of glowing House sigils. They flicker wildly, blowing out one by one like popped circuit breakers.
Rafe swears, lunges toward me again.
"Focus on me," he snaps. "On my voice. You're pulling from the lines—cut it off—"
"I don't know how," I cry, voice breaking.
The corridor swims in and out of focus: faces blurring, House colors streaking. Someone's throwing up barriers now—Forge students, maybe, dampening fields sparking and struggling to contain the discharge.
Over it all, I can feel another presence, cool and familiar and worried, brushing the edge of my thoughts like a hand on glass.
Sol. Sol, listen to me.
Alice? But I can't answer; the current's too loud.
My heart's pounding as if it's trying to outrun my body.
One last surge rips through me, bigger than the others, tearing out of my hands in a crackling halo that slams into the ceiling. Plaster dust rains down. A sprinkler head bursts; water sprays, hits hot metal and turns instantly to steam.
For a second, everything is white noise and light.
Then the world tilts. The current doesn't just leave; it yanks me with it, like a wave receding from shore. My knees buckle.
The last thing I feel is strong arms catching me before I hit the ground—Rafe? Leo? Someone else?—and the brush of a familiar mind shoving a blanket of calm over my panic.
"Got her," someone says, voice distorted and far away.
My vision tunnels, gold bleeding to gray.
Did I just… Echo him? I think, dazed. Did I hurt anyone?
Then even that thought slips away, and everything goes black.