Class ended. The bell pronounced judgment. If I was ever going to make this mission happen, now was the window.

  I shot out of my seat and sprinted for the office. Honestly, it wasn’t hard to find. The signage might as well have been drawn with big purple arrows like a Dora episode—“Can you find the office? Say of-fice!”

  I rapped on the door—polite, a single-knuckle knock.

  “Come in,” called a voice with edges—Principal Renner’s. Crisp, accented, and the kind of steady that makes you stand up straighter even when no one asked you to.

  I opened the door and stepped into a space that looked like the dictionary definition of order. A broad brown desk sat near the window, neat as a ruler—no teetering stacks, no paper blizzard, just a slim tray and a closed folder placed with surgical accuracy. A clean silver lamp cast an even pool of light across the desktop. Tall drawer cabinets anchored the back corners like sentries. Two visitor chairs flanked the door, angled so you didn’t forget you were the visitor. A gray border carpet framed the room like a picture mat.

  And at the center of the frame: Principal Renner. Her gaze pinned me like a hawk pinning a field mouse.

  “Is there something you want to speak to me about?” she asked. “Did someone do something to you?”

  Her eyes didn’t blink. There was no malice in them, just an exacting attention that felt soul-snatching. My voice briefly forgot how to exit my body.

  She kept looking, that silent clock ticking in the air between us. “I assume you didn’t come here to waste my time.”

  “No—no, of course not, ma’am,” I said, words tripping over one another and bowing. “I wanted to ask if there’s an assignment open for us. An operation.”

  She leaned back, a slow exhale shaping into a sigh that had lived a long, long life. “You are likely the fifteen-hundredth student who has asked me that question today,” she said. “And what I told them, I will tell you: there is not much space left.”

  “I’m sure there was lots of space before the MP system,” I said before my brain could tackle my mouth to the ground.

  Her stare slid over my face, and immediate regret set off the fire alarms in my nervous system. “But what do I know,” I added, palms going humid. “Just… speculating.”

  “I can understand why you would think that,” she replied, measured, not unkind. “But even before the MP system, the academy’s assignment board was rarely empty. YMPA students are placed on missions year-round. Securing one has always been difficult.”

  “Right, right.” I nodded like a dashboard bobblehead. “Still—maybe there’s one left?”

  “How many are on your team?” she asked.

  “Three.”

  She tilted her head, considering. “A fine start,” she said. “But with so few slots, you will need a sizable loan of luck.”

  “I can still get it,” I said—then tacked on, “Maybe. Of course.” Caution tape, draped belatedly across my confidence.

  She gave me a look that wasn’t quite a frown, more like fatigue stretching its legs. “You had better hope so. Get to your next class.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I bobbed another nod and beat a polite retreat.

  The moment the door closed behind me, oxygen felt legal again. My spine unglued. That was… tense. For a second I’d expected a red dot to bloom on my chest and wake up in the Academy Hospital with a pamphlet titled Consequences: A Beginner’s Guide.

  Next class—downstairs with Master Tiphe. Which meant Malachi and September would be there. Which meant, if I let my thoughts off the leash, they’d sprint into traffic.

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  On the landing, Nikki and Tisiah waited. That was unexpectedly thoughtful, like they’d placed a human buffer between me and my own worst impulses.

  “So?” Nikki said, the syllable already loaded, five steps before I reached them.

  “She said we’d better hope for an assignment,” I reported. “And I am.”

  Nikki rolled her eyes so hard I could hear the pivots. Under her breath, in a tone with texture, she muttered, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Tisiah said quickly, throwing a hopeful rope across the gap. “Hold on, Connor. We’ll get one.”

  Nikki turned to him with a face that would have broken a less confident man. “The levels of your optimism are unhealthy,” she said.

  Tisiah beamed. “Finally, a diagnosis.”

  By the time the last bell sank into the evening, the day had wrung me out. I got home at six on the dot—four hours to stew, catastrophize, and call it “processing.”

  Malachi had spent the afternoon still orbiting September. At some point, my brain accepted that reality the way a bruise accepts pressure: it hurts, but you can’t stop testing it. That day was his. Tomorrow would be mine. It had to be.

  I knocked twice. The door opened immediately—Mom, mid-smile, like she’d been standing there sensing incoming teenage melodrama.

  “How was the chess club?” she asked.

  “Like a chess club,” I said.

  She paused just long enough to install a silence that requested a more complete download. Her eyebrows did the rest of the asking.

  “Okay, fine.” I stepped inside as she drifted to the couch, settling into her corner like a queen on a small, soft throne. “There’s someone I like. I’m trying to talk to her. Someone else has—shockingly—the same idea.”

  Mom laughed—a low warm sound that always makes the house feel like a house again. “Connor,” she said, patting the cushion beside her until I complied, “one thing you need to know about us is: it doesn’t matter who talks more, or who performs more. We choose.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured.” That’s how humans work, right? A choose-your-own romance with no scoring rubric.

  She shook her head. “No, not that,” she said. “I mean, it doesn’t matter if one boy hangs around all the time and the other only sometimes. If we like the other, we like the other.”

  “But what about the girls who chase rich or cool?” I asked. “Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

  “Plenty prefer that,” she said evenly. “But it isn’t everyone, and it isn’t always. Don’t build your heart around the exception or the rumor.”

  She motioned me closer, and I found myself obeying like a reflex. “Here’s my advice,” she said. “Don’t worry. When the time comes, it comes. For now, just have fun as her friend. A friend is close enough, isn’t it?”

  I could have argued. My heart certainly had the PowerPoint ready. But instead I nodded. “For now,” I said. The words tasted like compromise and relief.

  “Good.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Now go change and check your homework. I don’t want mystery emails showing up. Understood?”

  “Yeah, aight.” I stood, already halfway up the stairs in my head. I needed a second opinion—Greg’s. Mom’s advice is the anchor; Greg is the weather report.

  I hit my room, shut the door, fished out my phone, and called. It rang a disrespectful number of times, then clicked.

  “Just got back?” Greg asked.

  “Just walked in,” I said. “You?”

  “Same. Barely made it to the telephone in time.”

  “Telephone?” I blinked. “Are you in 1998?”

  “My mom took my phone,” he said. “Don’t ask.”

  I grimaced in sympathy. “Okay, listen. Long story short, I’m not the only one going for her.”

  “Didn’t see that coming,” he said, perfectly deadpan.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Anyway, Malachi—he’s going for September. And, given his whole… everything—”

  “You have a rival likely a few leagues ahead,” Greg said, cutting clean through to the thesis. “Still beatable. You need attention. There’s one thing you have that he doesn’t.”

  “My Perk,” I said. “We’ve had this talk. But it’s not the only thing. The MP system—Mr. Drails said it starts tomorrow.”

  “The MP system,” Greg repeated. “EMO’s rolling it too. And you’re actually being smart about it, which is terrifying. You’ll level with MP, leverage your Perk—foolproof plan, if you execute.”

  I let the praise sink into my bones like a heating pad. We’re brothers, sure, but sometimes it still startles me how precisely Greg can map my brain. It’s comforting having someone who speaks Connor like a native language.

  “I’d do the same thing,” he added with a chuckle. “Solid plan. Just make sure that in the middle of all that leveling, you carve real time with her.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but hesitation walked in first. Mom’s words perched on my shoulder—We choose—and refused to budge. If September’s already choosing with her time—choosing to be near Malachi—what am I actually doing? Collecting MP like a dragon hoarding gold while the princess marries the other knight?

  Then Greg said the sentence that turned my bones to powder.

  “You can’t expect a chance if she knows Malachi more than she knows you.”

  There it was. My rock turned to sand. The house I’d been quietly building—mission, MP, mastery—lost three bricks in a row. Because he was right. People fall toward familiarity. If she knows him better, then the gravity is his.

  The line went quiet while I chewed on that. It wasn’t a cruel point; it was a true one. Which made it worse.

  But… then again, Mom did say to just keep it friendly. Maybe that’s the idea—but I’m not sure. I just wish I didn’t have a competitor in all this.