Zephryn didn’t speak.

The student’s words still hung between them like a held blade.

“They don’t want you to survive the Crucible.”

Kaelen stepped forward. “Who’s they?”

The student looked at him, then at the others.

His voice was calm. Unshaken.

“The same people who locked your Lyceum record.

The same people who issued a false flamefall designation.

The same people who made the word Zephryn unspoken for six years.”

Selka’s eyes narrowed.

“Doctrine.”

He nodded. “Not all of them. Just the ones who remember.”

Yolti crossed her arms, but her voice was sharp now. “Why would Doctrine care about a student?”

“They don’t.” He looked at Zephryn.

“They care about what he might still remember.”

Zephryn’s hand brushed the pendant under his scarf.

“You still haven’t told us your name.”

“Because I’m not the message.”

He stepped back, then held out a small square card—silver, veiled in shifting pulse.

“Follow the glyph. Only at night. Only alone.

And if you feel the hum? Keep walking.”

He pressed it into Zephryn’s palm and walked away without waiting for a response.

The group stood in silence.

Kaelen was the first to move.

“We shouldn’t trust him.”

“We didn’t,” Yolti said. “But we heard him.”

Selka stepped closer to Zephryn, her voice low.

“If he’s telling the truth, they’ve already moved.”

Zephryn stared down at the card.

The glyph on its surface began to shift—subtle, rhythmic.

Not a pulse.

A lure.

Back inside the Lyceum, the instructor from earlier stood in a darkened room alone.

He opened his hand.

A second card, identical, shimmered once in the dim light.

Then burned itself out.

Behind him, a figure stood half-shrouded in veillight. Their gloves bore the mark of the Doctrine’s inner tier.

They didn’t speak.

They didn’t need to.

The hum was watching now.