The intruder weighed approximately seventy-three kilograms, Elarion estimated as he dragged the unconscious body down the corridor toward the service stairs. Not heavy, but awkward—dead weight always was.
He'd wrapped the man's head and hands in a blanket he'd taken from his own room, obscuring identifying features. To any casual observer—if there were any at 3 AM—it would look like someone helping an extremely drunk friend to bed. Probably.
The service stairs were narrow, poorly lit, and thankfully empty. Elarion descended three flights with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd moved bodies before, though he tried not to think too hard about that particular skill set.
The basement level smelled like stone and old water. Storage rooms lined one wall, their doors marked with faded administrative labels. Elarion chose one at random—"Surplus Linens, 2nd Quarter"—and found it unlocked, full of exactly what the label promised.
He deposited the intruder in a corner behind stacks of musty sheets, checked his pulse again (still steady), and then did something he should have done earlier: searched him.
The man's pockets yielded little. No identification. No coins. No personal effects at all. Just the knife—good steel, unmarked—and a small vial tucked into an inner pocket.
Elarion held the vial up to the dim light filtering through the basement window. Clear liquid, slightly viscous. Could be anything from water to concentrated poison. He pocketed it for later analysis.
The mask was next. Elarion pulled it off carefully.
An unremarkable face stared back at him, slackened by unconsciousness. Male, late twenties, no distinctive features. The kind of face you'd forget five minutes after seeing it.
Just like me, Elarion thought. Which was either coincidence or design.
He checked the man's neck, wrists, ankles for identifying marks. Nothing. Not even the common tattoos that soldiers often accumulated. This person had been scrubbed clean of identity as thoroughly as Elarion had scrubbed himself.
Professional.
Which meant this wasn't random. Wasn't some opportunistic thief targeting student rooms. This was planned, organized, and targeted specifically at information about him.
The question was: by whom?
Elarion stood, studying the unconscious intruder one last time. In a few hours, the man would wake up confused, probably with a headache, definitely without clear memories of how he'd ended up in a basement surrounded by linens. The pressure point technique Elarion had used often caused temporary retrograde amnesia—a useful side effect.
He'd wake up, realize he'd failed his mission, and report back to whoever had sent him.
And then Elarion would have to deal with the next attempt.
Unless he found them first.
He left the storage room, locked it from the outside using a trick with friction manipulation that jammed the mechanism in a way that looked mechanical, and climbed back upstairs.
By the time he returned to the fourth floor, fifty-three minutes had elapsed since he'd left Lira's room.
He gave her the full hour. Used the remaining time to shower, change clothes, and prepare for the conversation that was about to happen—the one where he'd have to decide how much truth to share with someone he'd met less than a day ago.
At precisely one hour, Elarion left his room and headed for the west wing.
The roof access door was propped open with a brick, exactly as he'd instructed.
Elarion climbed the narrow stairs, pushed through the door, and stepped out into cool night air that tasted like rain coming.
The College's rooftops spread out like a maze of peaks and valleys, connected by walkways that probably violated several safety regulations. The city sprawled beyond, lights twinkling in the distance like terrestrial stars.
Lira sat on the edge of a flat section, legs dangling over a three-story drop, looking more composed than someone who'd been attacked an hour ago had any right to be.
She glanced back as he approached. "You came."
"You doubted I would?"
"Little bit." She patted the space beside her. "It's safe. I checked."
Elarion sat, maintaining a careful distance—close enough to talk quietly, far enough to move if necessary. Below them, the courtyard lay empty except for a few late-night stragglers heading back to dormitories.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Freaked out. Furious. Curious." She ticked them off on her fingers. "In that order. You?"
"Calculating."
"Of course you are." She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. "So. The floor thing. Explain."
Elarion had prepared three different explanations of varying truthfulness. Looking at her now—at the steadiness in her eyes despite the fear she'd admitted to, at the way she held herself together through sheer will—he found himself defaulting to something closer to truth than he'd planned.
"Friction manipulation," he said. "I can alter the coefficient of friction between surfaces. Make them more slippery or more sticky, depending on what I need."
"That's a child-level spell."
"So I've heard."
"But that's not how you use it." She was watching him closely. "Child-level spells are localized, limited duration, crude application. What you did—making someone fall that perfectly, controlling exactly where they slid, maintaining it long enough for them to be completely helpless—that's not child-level execution. That's..."
"Overpowered?" Elarion supplied.
"I was going to say 'military-grade.'" She paused. "You served too, didn't you? That's how you know these things. How you move like that, fight like that, think like that."
No point denying it. She'd already connected the dots.
"Yes."
"What branch?"
"That's classified."
"Everything about you is classified, isn't it?" She said it without accusation, just observation. "No records, no history, no footprints. You're a ghost."
"I prefer 'discrete.'"
"You prefer invisible." Lira looked out at the city. "I meant what I said earlier. About the war not being over for you. Someone who manipulates friction that precisely, who moves through crowds like you don't exist, who saves people without them knowing how—that's not someone who learned those skills in peacetime."
Elarion said nothing. Sometimes silence was the most honest answer.
"What did you do?" Lira asked quietly. "In the war. That made you this afraid of being seen?"
"What makes you think I'm afraid?"
"Because I am." She turned to look at him directly. "I'm terrified every single day that someone will look at me and see the medic who couldn't save her squad. That they'll ask questions and I'll have to remember. That they'll make me go back." Her voice cracked slightly. "So I recognize it in other people. That fear of being known."
The vulnerability in her admission hit harder than Elarion expected. He found himself speaking before thinking, which was dangerous but somehow felt necessary.
"I was good at what I did," he said slowly. "Too good. Good enough that they gave me assignments that required being invisible. Going places where if anyone knew I was there, people died." He paused. "Including me."
"Wetwork," Lira said. Not a question.
"Among other things."
"And after the war?"
"I stayed invisible. Because once you learn how to disappear, it's hard to believe it's safe to be seen again." He looked at his hands—clean now, but memory was stubborn. "Turns out I was right. Someone found me anyway. Brought me here. And now people are breaking into rooms to ask questions about me."
"You think it's connected? The letter that brought you here and the person in my room?"
"I don't believe in coincidences."
Lira was quiet for a moment, processing. Then: "So what do we do?"
"We?" Elarion glanced at her. "This isn't your problem."
"Someone broke into my room to ask about you. That makes it my problem." She met his eyes steadily. "Besides, you saved me. I'm not good at leaving debts unpaid."
"You don't owe me anything."
"Maybe not. But I'm involved now whether you like it or not. So we can either work together and maybe figure this out, or we can pretend tonight didn't happen and wait for the next bad thing to occur." She tilted her head. "What's the tactical choice?"
Elarion almost smiled. Almost.
"You think like a soldier."
"I was trained by them. Field medics operate under combat conditions—you learn to think tactically or you die." She pulled her knees tighter. "So? Together or separate?"
He should say separate. Should push her away, maintain distance, keep her out of whatever mess he was entangled in. That was the safe play. The smart play.
But sitting here on this roof with someone who understood—really understood—what it meant to carry war inside you...
That felt like something he hadn't realized he'd been missing.
"Together," he said finally. "But carefully. We don't know who's watching or what they want. We assume everyone is suspicious until proven otherwise."
"Even Professor Thorne?"
"Especially Professor Thorne. He admitted to signing the letter. That makes him part of this."
"But he warned you too. About being too unremarkable." Lira frowned. "Maybe he's trying to help?"
"Or he's trying to gain trust before betraying it. We can't know yet." Elarion stood, offered her a hand up. "First step is information gathering. Find out who else knows about me, who has access to student records, who might have sent that intruder."
Lira took his hand—her grip was strong, calloused from years of medical work—and pulled herself up. "I can help with that. Medical records are stored in the same building as student records. I still have friends in the registrar's office from when I enrolled. They might talk."
"Careful. If someone's watching me, they might be watching people who associate with me."
"Then I'll be careful." She looked at him seriously. "I'm not fragile, Elarion. I've seen things that would break most people. I'm still standing. I can handle this."
He believed her. That was the surprising part—he actually believed her.
"Okay," he said. "But we need protocols. No meeting in our rooms—too easy to observe. Public places or here, on the roof. We communicate in ways that don't seem like communication—sitting together in the dining hall, studying in the library. Normal student behavior that hides information exchange."
"Like spycraft."
"Exactly like spycraft."
Lira nodded slowly. "This is insane, you know that? We've known each other for less than a day and we're planning covert operations like we're in enemy territory."
"Aren't we?" Elarion looked out at the College, its towers and bridges and carefully organized architecture. "Someone powerful wanted me here. Someone else is willing to break into rooms and threaten students to learn about me. The College might be beautiful, but it's not safe."
"Nowhere's safe. Not really." Lira wrapped her arms around herself against the cool air. "But at least now I'm not alone in being paranoid."
"Is that supposed to be comforting?"
"Weirdly, yes." She moved toward the access door. "I should get back. Try to sleep, though I probably won't. And tomorrow we start figuring out who wants you badly enough to send masked intruders."
"Lira."
She paused at the doorway.
"Why are you doing this? Really. You could report what happened, transfer rooms, stay far away from whatever this is."
She was quiet for a long moment, silhouetted against the dim light from the stairwell.
"Because," she said finally, "I'm tired of being afraid. And maybe helping you means I stop running from my own ghosts." She looked back at him. "Or maybe I just recognize someone who needs an ally and I'm tired of everyone being alone."
Then she disappeared down the stairs, leaving Elarion on the roof with the wind and the distant city lights and a feeling he couldn't quite name.
It wasn't trust. Not quite.
But it was something adjacent.
He returned to his room fifteen minutes later, checked the lock and the window and the acoustic patterns. Everything was as he'd left it.
But as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind catalogued the evening's events:
One intruder, professionally trained, sent to gather information.
One unexpected ally, war-scarred and perceptive, willing to help despite the danger.
One mystery deepening by the hour, centered on him for reasons he still didn't fully understand.
And somewhere in the College—in offices or towers or underground chambers—people who knew his name, his abilities, his past.
People who'd decided he needed to be here.
The question was why.
And whether he'd survive finding out.
The next morning arrived with news.
Elarion heard it at breakfast, whispered between students with the frantic energy of scandal: three students had disappeared overnight. Not kidnapped—just gone. Rooms locked from inside, windows sealed, no signs of struggle. But their beds were empty and their belongings remained untouched.
Campus security was investigating. The faculty was concerned but urging calm. Nothing to worry about, probably just students pulling pranks or making poor decisions.
But Elarion, listening from his corner table while methodically eating breakfast, noticed something the whispers hadn't mentioned yet:
All three disappeared students were enrolled in Professor Thorne's Advanced Theoretical Applications class.
All three had been sitting in the front row yesterday.
All three had been taking notes during the lecture on wave interference patterns.
And all three had exchanged those meaningful glances when Thorne mentioned "classified applications."
Elarion set down his fork and looked across the dining hall.
Lira sat with a small group of medical students, but her eyes found his across the crowd. A brief moment of contact, just long enough to confirm she'd heard the same news and drawn the same conclusions.
Something was happening.
Something that made students vanish without trace.
And somehow, it was connected to him.
The trap was tightening.
And Elarion realized with cold certainty that the intruder in Lira's room hadn't been the opening move.
It had been a distraction.
While he'd been focused on that single threat, something much larger had been unfolding around them.
He pushed his plate away, appetite gone, and began calculating how many exits the dining hall had and how quickly he could reach them if necessary.
Old habits.
But given recent events, probably necessary ones.