The silence in Workshop Bay 3 was a physical weight.
The students stood frozen, data-pads held out like offerings as the two Inquisitors moved with methodical, chilling efficiency. The lead Inquisitor—Ken's **Eye of Truth** parsed the rank insignia: **Carrow, Grade II**—scanned each device with his ornate sensor, his eyes cold chips of obsidian.
Ken's pad chimed as it was scanned.
Carrow's device remained silent, its eerie glow unchanged. He gave Ken's princely insignia another dismissive glance and moved to the next student.
The scan was searching for something specific: residual quantum signatures, temporal anomalies, the unique "noise" of a reality glitch being actively manipulated.
*They have a signature profile,* Ken calculated, his mind racing. *Orric's lab. The circle. They're trying to match energy residuals. My Quantumization leaves a faint ionic trail. Estimated decay time: 36 hours. Last use: 10 hours ago. Risk of detection: low, but non-zero.*
He watched, appearing merely anxious, as Carrow scanned Jax's pad.
The device flickered—a faint, blue pulse.
Carrow's head snapped up.
"Meridian. Your pad shows elevated photonic resonance and unauthorized data-node access last night between 02:00 and 04:00. Explain."
Jax blinked, his grease-smudged face genuinely bewildered.
"I was running a fractal simulation on crystalline growth patterns! It's for my independent study! The nodes are open-access for approved projects! Check my permissions!"
Carrow's lips thinned.
Jax's genius was a type of energy the scanner would register. He was a false positive, but a convenient one.
"You will submit your project data for deep audit. Failure to comply is heresy."
He marked something on his own slate.
Jax paled, his bravado cracking under the word *heresy*.
The scan continued.
A girl from the Ashfall Kingdoms triggered a minor thermal spike—her innate magma-affinity. A boy from an Arcane family caused a faint dimensional warble.
Each was marked for "follow-up evaluation."
The Inquisition wasn't just hunting the Phantom; they were cataloging every exceptional student, every potential deviant from their "pure" norm.
Finally, Carrow stood before Seraphine.
She handed over her pad, her stance still as that of a soldier. The scanner passed over it.
Nothing.
No spike, no resonance. She was, energetically, a void of pure physical discipline.
Carrow's eyes narrowed slightly.
In a world of glitching powers, such perfect neutrality was itself suspicious.
"Rae. You are assigned to the auxiliary security detail for the east dormitory block. Effective immediately. Report to Guard-Captain Bren after this session."
It wasn't a question.
It was conscription.
They were putting the relentless, observant girl in a position to watch her peers.
To watch *him*.
Seraphine's jaw tightened, but she gave a sharp, single nod.
"Understood."
The Inquisitors finished, their sensor having found no perfect match, only a collection of interesting anomalies.
Carrow's gaze swept the room one final time.
"The Heretic who defiles our order with his symbol walks among you. Harboring him, or failing to report suspicion, is complicity. The Empress's mercy has limits."
They left.
The door hissed shut.
For a beat, there was only the hum of machinery.
Then, the room erupted into nervous chatter.
Jax slammed a wrench on his bench.
"Heresy! For running a *simulation*! Do they think I'm etching circles on walls?"
Seraphine said nothing, collecting her tools with deliberate calm, but her movements were tense, wire-tight.
Ken merely retrieved his data-pad.
The operation was compromised. The Inquisition's direct involvement changed the variables. His original plan—slow, silent attrition—was now untenable.
He needed to accelerate Phase Two: the construction of a credible, alternative entity to absorb the Inquisition's focus.
He needed a pawn.
---
**The opportunity presented itself two days later, in the Central Archives.**
Ken had secured a provisional research pass—a triumph of his perfectly average, persistent requests. He was searching for references to pre-Dominion water-table management, a laughably benign topic.
In the secluded "Historical Hydrology" sector, he found his pawn.
Edmund, a fourth-year student from a minor noble house bordering the Aethel lands, was in a state of quiet panic.
Ken's **Eye of Truth** saw it immediately: elevated heart rate, palmar sweat, the scent of fear-metabolites. Edmund was frantically micro-scanning pages of a ledger marked *"Aethel Household: Granary Yields, Sector 7."*
It was not a historical text.
It was a current, private record.
He was stealing data.
*Motive: Likely gambling debts. Target: House Aethel (Valeriana's house). Risk-Tolerance: Low. Moral Flexibility: High.*
Ken's assessment was instantaneous.
He let a scroll case slip from his grasp.
It clattered to the floor.
Edmund jerked up, eyes wild, slamming the ledger shut.
"Who's there?!"
Ken stepped into the light, his expression one of polite, clueless concern.
"Oh. I apologize. I didn't mean to startle you. Are you quite alright? You look... unwell."
"Prince Ken," Edmund breathed, forcing a shaky smile. "It's nothing. Just... difficult translations."
Ken tilted his head, his **Eye of Truth** noting the specific data-chip Edmund tried to conceal.
"House Aethel ledgers are notoriously complex. Their double-entry encryption on grain shipments is a marvel of obfuscation, isn't it? To hide the true volume of their tithe-evasion."
Edmund froze.
The blood drained from his face. Ken had just articulated the exact crime he was investigating, the exact secret he was trying to uncover and presumably sell.
"I... I don't know what you mean."
"Of course not," Ken said mildly, taking a step closer. "It would be a serious matter. The Empress's own house, skimming from the royal grain reserves. If the wrong person found that chip..."
He let the sentence hang.
"The Inquisition is so active lately. I heard they're scanning everyone. I wonder what they'd find on a random data-chip?"
Edmund was trembling.
"What do you want?"
"A trade," Ken said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, perfectly playing the part of a timid prince seeing a chance for leverage.
"I want nothing from you. But there are... things happening. The Phantom. The circles. It's frightening. I think someone should... help the Inquisition. Give them a direction."
Edmund's eyes widened.
"You want me to... lie?"
"Not lie," Ken corrected softly. "Just... share a suspicion. You're a senior. You hear things. Maybe you heard a name whispered. Someone seen in the wrong place. Someone like... Jax Meridian. He's brilliant, unconventional. The Inquisition already suspects him. You could... confirm their bias. For the good of the academy."
He let the implication settle.
"And in return..."
Ken's eyes flicked to the hidden data-chip.
"...your research here remains your own. A prince's word."
The calculus was brutal and clear in Edmund's terrified mind: sacrifice a weird, commoner genius he didn't know, or be destroyed by the most powerful house in the empire for espionage.
He swallowed, a hard, dry click in his throat.
"What... exactly should I say I heard?"
Ken smiled, a small, nervous thing that didn't reach his eyes.
"Just the truth. That you heard Jax bragging about bypassing security protocols. That he has a fascination with... symbols. That's all. You'd be a patriot."
He left Edmund there, sweating in the dusty light.
The pawn was in play.
---
**The move yielded results faster than expected.**
The next morning, Jax was not in Workshop Bay 3.
Rumor said the Inquisition had taken him for "voluntary clarifying interviews." His bench sat empty, a half-dismantled drone lying lifeless.
Seraphine sought Ken out after combat class.
Her usual analytical expression was clouded with something harder—anger.
"They took Jax."
"I heard," Ken said, looking at the ground. "It's terrible. He's odd, but he's not... that."
"No, he's not," Seraphine said, her voice low and fierce. "He's a nuisance who talks too much about gears. He's not a heretic. This is wrong."
She studied Ken's face.
"You were there. During the scan. Did you see anything?"
*A flicker of a scanner. A blue pulse. A convenient genius.*
"Just the Inquisitors," Ken said. "They seemed... very sure of what they were looking for."
Seraphine's gaze lingered.
She didn't believe him, not fully. But she didn't see a culprit. She saw a witness who was hiding something out of fear.
"If you hear anything. Anything real. You tell me."
It wasn't a request. It was an order from someone used to responsibility.
Ken nodded, the picture of grateful deference to her strength.
As she walked away, a new figure fell into step beside Ken.
He caught the scent of jasmine and cold stone.
"A clumsy play, brother."
Princess Selene walked with him, her steps unhurried, her eyes fixed ahead. She wore a smile of benign royal courtesy for anyone watching.
Only Ken heard the razor beneath the silk.
"I don't know what you mean, sister."
"The engineering student was a shield," she murmured. "A loud, obvious shield you placed in front of yourself. It will hold their gaze for a week, perhaps two. But my mother's hounds are not stupid. They will tear through his life, find nothing of consequence, and grow hungrier."
She finally glanced at him, her amethyst eyes gleaming with icy amusement.
"You've bought time, not safety. And you've made a powerful enemy in that commoner girl. She will not forget her friend."
Ken kept walking, his own mask intact.
"You seem very interested in things that don't concern you."
"Everything in this academy concerns me," Selene said sweetly. "It's my board. And you, dear Ken, have just moved a piece with such... predictable desperation. It tells me more about you than a hundred flawless test scores ever could."
She paused at a corridor branching toward the royal suites.
"A word of advice? The next circle you draw... make sure it's not around your own throat."
She left him then, her parting smile a masterpiece of sisterly affection that chilled him to the bone.
---
**That night, the Phantom moved again.**
Not to kill.
To deliver.
In the empty office of Inquisitor Carrow, left unlocked during the shift change, a single sheet of archival paper appeared on the otherwise spotless desk.
On it was drawn a perfect, labyrinthine circle—not the simple ring left before, but a complex, esoteric symbol found in true Umbral Scribe texts describing "recursive containment."
Beneath it, typed on a machine whose font matched the academy's public terminals, was a message:
*"YOU HOUND THE WRONG SPARK. LOOK TO THE QUIET LIGHT. THE EYE THAT SEES TOO MUCH. -P"*
It was a gambit.
A redirection.
The "quiet light" could be any number of students with light-based affinities. But in the paranoid mind of the Inquisition, it would seed doubt about their focus on Jax. It would force them to widen their search, to question each other.
And it would confirm the Phantom was not just a killer, but a thinker. An adversary who communicated, who misdirected, who played the game on their level.
---
**Back in his room, Ken stared at the ceiling.**
Seraphine's anger.
Selene's warning.
Jax in a cell.
Edmund's cowardice.
The pieces were in chaotic motion.
He had stopped one threat and created three more. The math was getting complicated.
And for the first time, a faint, unfamiliar signal registered in his core programming—a sensation like the precursor to a system error.
It felt like the weight of a debt.
---
**[End of Chapter 5]**