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"You're tracking Danny."
Reina's voice cut through the armory before I even got the chalk circle finished. I didn't look up. Kept my hand steady, kept the sigil tight. The tracking spell was already half-cast, the runes glowing faint blue against the concrete floor.
"Danny's dead," I said. "Again."
"So you're gonna watch him die twice in one day?" She stepped closer. I could hear the boots, slow and deliberate. "That's your plan?"
"My plan's to figure out who stuck a blade in his gut." I finished the outer ring and stood, brushing chalk dust off my palms. "Unless you'd rather I let all twenty-seven of you burn."
She didn't answer. Just crossed her arms and leaned against the weapon rack, eyes locked on me like I was the one who needed watching. Maybe I was.
The tracking spell lit up, a thin thread of light snaking out from the circle and disappearing through the wall. I followed it. Reina followed me.
"You think it's him," she said.
"I think somebody's using him."
"Or he's using you."
I stopped. Turned. She was close enough that I could see the way her jaw set, the way her hand hovered near her knife. Not threatening. Not yet. Just ready.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Means you're starting to act like a man who's seen too much." She tilted her head. "You're jumpy. You're second-guessing. You're tracking students like they're enemies."
"One of them is."
"So you keep saying." Her eyes narrowed. "But you won't tell me who."
The thread pulsed, pulling me forward. I turned and kept walking. Reina didn't let it drop.
"You want my help or not, Hale?"
"I want you to stay out of my way."
"Can't do that."
I stopped again. This time I didn't turn. Just stood there, one hand on the doorframe, the other clenched at my side. The thread was pulling tighter now, vibrating like a live wire. Danny was moving. Fast.
"Why not?"
"Because if you're wrong," Reina said, "and you get one of these kids killed because you were too paranoid to ask for backup, I'm the one who has to live with that."
I looked back at her. She wasn't bluffing. I could see it in the set of her shoulders, the way her voice dropped half an octave. This wasn't about trust. This was about survival.
"Fine," I said. "But you follow my lead. You don't touch him. You don't talk to him. You just watch."
"Deal."
We moved through the west corridor, past the mess hall, past the training yard. The thread led us down to the lower levels, where the storage vaults were. Old munitions. Sealed crates. Stuff nobody touched unless they were looking for something specific.
Or hiding something.
Danny was in vault three, crouched over a metal case with his back to the door. He didn't hear us coming. Didn't hear me stop just outside the threshold, one hand raised to keep Reina back.
He was muttering something. Low and fast. I couldn't make out the words, but the cadence was wrong. Too rhythmic. Too practiced.
A chant.
Reina's hand went to her knife. I shook my head. Not yet.
Danny opened the case. Inside was a glass vial, filled with something dark and viscous. He picked it up, held it to the light. His hands were shaking.
"Don't," I said.
He spun, dropped the vial. It hit the floor and shattered. The liquid inside hissed and smoked, eating through the concrete like acid. Danny scrambled back, eyes wide, hands up.
"Instructor Hale—"
"What is that?"
"I don't know, I—"
"Bullshit." I stepped into the vault. Reina stayed in the doorway, blocking the exit. Danny's eyes flicked between us, wild and desperate.
"I found it," he said. "Last night. Someone left it in my bunk."
"And you brought it down here why?"
"Because I didn't want anyone to see—"
"To see you carrying contraband?" Reina cut in. Her voice was cold. Surgical. "Or to see you use it?"
Danny's face went pale. "I wasn't going to—"
"Then what were you doing?" I stepped closer. The smoke from the acid was thickening, making my eyes water. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you were about to dose yourself with something that'll either kill you or turn you into a weapon."
"I was trying to figure out what it was!" His voice cracked. "Someone's setting me up, okay? Someone's been leaving things in my stuff, whispering my name in the halls, making me look like—"
"Like the mole."
The words hung in the air. Danny's mouth opened. Closed. He looked at me like I'd just put a knife in his chest.
"You think it's me."
I didn't answer. Didn't need to. The look on his face said he already knew.
"Instructor, I swear—"
"Swearing doesn't mean anything down here, Locke." I crouched, studied the residue on the floor. It was still eating through the concrete, carving a pattern. Not random. Deliberate. A sigil.
A trigger.
"Reina, get back—"
The explosion wasn't loud. It was a soft pop, like a champagne cork. But the blast hit Danny square in the chest and threw him into the wall. I lunged, caught him before he hit the ground. His shirt was scorched, his skin blistered. Blood seeped through my fingers.
"Hale—" His voice was a rasp. "I didn't—"
"I know."
"Someone—" He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Someone's watching—"
"Who?"
"Don't know—" His eyes were losing focus. "But they knew—they knew you'd follow—"
Reina was at my side, her hands moving fast, trying to cast a healing sigil. It wouldn't hold. The damage was too deep. I could feel his pulse slowing under my palms.
"Stay with me, Locke."
"Sorry," he whispered. "Sorry I wasn't—good enough—"
He went limp. Reina cursed, kept casting. I pulled back, hands slick with blood, staring at the kid I'd just watched die for the second time today.
And then I felt it.
The pull.
Not the tracking spell. Something else. Something cold and sharp, threading through my ribs like a wire. I looked down. There was a mark on my wrist, glowing faint red. A sigil I didn't cast.
"Hale?" Reina's voice was distant. "What is that?"
I tried to speak. Couldn't. The wire pulled tighter, dragging me down, down into the concrete, into the dark. I could hear a voice, low and amused, threading through my skull.
"Six-oh-three a.m.," it said. "See you then, Hale."
The reset hit like a hammer.
I woke up gasping, hands clawing at my wrist. The mark was gone. The blood was gone. Danny was alive again, probably still asleep in his bunk, dreaming about being a hero.
But the voice was still there. Echoing. Laughing.
And now I knew.
The precog wasn't just watching.
They were inside the loop.
And they knew exactly when I'd wake up.