Date: Monday, April 24

  Location: YMPA Main Area

  Operation: Mage Football, Three Goons (subject to change)

  Time: 16:15

  I barely got three steps inside the YMPA before Nikki and Tisiah materialized out of nowhere and latched onto my arms like I was late for a flight only they had tickets for. No hello, no briefing—just immediate acceleration.

  “What’s the deal?” I managed, as they steered me behind the main stairs and down the corridor that fed toward the dorm wings.

  “Mage Football. Duh,” Nikki said, the word duh doing a lot of heavy lifting.

  “Then why the hostage-escort energy?” I asked, half tripping as Tisiah cut a corner a little too tight.

  “Because today is the last day to try out,” Tisiah said, breath steady, pace not slowing. “Which means the line is probably already ridiculous.”

  “Wouldn’t that mean people came earlier and now it’s empty?” I tried.

  He shot me a look like I’d suggested the sky might be optional. “Everyone procrastinates, Connor. Even spies.” The way he said even spies made it sound like a betrayal of his religion.

  We blasted past a run of open doors—the quick flashes of student chaos like a flipbook. Laundry sprawled across floors. A shirt clung to a fan blade like a sailor in a storm. Someone’s wand hummed unattended on a desk. A sock drifted past as if it had ambitions. Then the corridor opened onto a landing, and there it was at the far end: a line of bodies that looked like it had been engineered to defy time.

  They were right.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. “There’s no way.”

  “There is,” said a voice behind me—smooth, amused, and immediately familiar enough to make my heart misfire.

  I turned and yelped. Malachi stood there like he’d been conjured by the words no way. Nikki clamped a hand over my mouth before the yelp turned into a full broadcast.

  “Everyone procrastinates,” Malachi said, oh-so-agreeably.

  “Like you?” I asked, because my mouth sometimes likes to volunteer for trouble.

  “You’re not innocent either,” he replied, and the tone was not aggressive so much as firm. Steam started to build somewhere under my skin.

  “I just found out it was today,” I said, lifting my shoulders in a shrug that attempted to be casual.

  He studied me for a beat and then nodded once, slow. Tisiah, who absolutely knew better, asked anyway, “Is there something between y’all?”

  Malachi didn’t blink. “I don’t know—maybe. Let’s just say we have similar interests.”

  My legs wobbled in a way that felt unflattering. If he hit me even once—in any context—I’d wake up somewhere at the front of the line with no memory of getting there. “What interests—”

  Malachi lifted a finger—a not now gesture. He looked at Tisiah for a long, assessing second, then allowed a slow smile to unfurl. “You lost weight, didn’t you?”

  “No. Never needed to, I don’t think,” Tisiah said, glancing down at himself. He was built more sturdy than streamlined, but his confidence wore a good suit.

  “Trust me,” Malachi said, smirking, “once you get to my physique, you’ll see what I mean.”

  We inched forward. I wondered if this was our purgatory now—thirty feet from a folding table, paced by a demigod, and doomed to hear tiny, smug comments about body composition. We were going to be with him for three hours...

  It wasn’t three hours, thank every saint of scheduling. It was thirty minutes. Long enough to memorize the scuffs in the floor and the rhythm of Malachi’s breathing, short enough that I didn’t consider building a new identity in line. He wasn’t obnoxious; he simply radiated a composed silence that acted like a gravity well. My solution: Don’t speak unless spoken to. If silence could be a shield, I was a knight.

  The tryout desk finally resolved into a person: a man under a blue coach’s hat and a tucked blue polo. Khakis pressed. Tennis shoes white enough to blind. He looked like the kind of adult who has a whistle for every occasion.

  “All of you trying to join?” he asked, eyes moving over our cluster. Then to Nikki: “As for you—Coach Mills is on the other side.”

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  “I’m just with my friends,” Nikki said quickly.

  “Friends?” Tisiah parroted, narrowing his eyes theatrically at her, which earned him nothing but air.

  “So it’s you two,” the coach said, pointing at me and Tisiah with two fingers. I looked at Tisiah. He nodded first, which meant the decision had never been mine.

  “Names, please?”

  We gave them. Boxes were checked. A clipboard made a satisfied rustle.

  By the time we drifted back into the cafeteria we had fifteen minutes to spare before our next block started. Malachi peeled away toward his crew the moment we were out of the bottleneck. Jamal, Elf, and Maddie were already there—the usual constellation at his back.

  We three—me, Nikki, Tisiah—stood for a second just inside the threshold, observers more than participants.

  “Jamal isn’t too close to Malachi,” I said. “He hangs on the outskirts.”

  “Maybe to avoid suspicion,” Tisiah said. “You don’t want to sit on top of your target if you’re watching him. He’s just… orbiting.”

  Before I could add another unhelpful observation, a different kind of gravity entered the room.

  September.

  She moved with that effortless economy that makes crowded spaces part like they’re glad to see you. She wore the standard white jacket—zipped today—and a pair of brown boots that tilted her whole look toward country-girl. It shouldn’t have worked with the uniform. It did anyway.

  I watched. She didn’t notice me; she was headed for the bathroom with practiced focus. I wouldn’t have noticed me either. Then Malachi appeared like a blocking maneuver and her friends, as if linked by an invisible cord, snapped into higher alertness.

  “We should hear the conversation,” I said, already angling my body.

  Tisiah gave me a look like I’d suggested storming a castle with a spoon. “What’s September going to do? She’s been at the YMPA longer than we’ve been alive. I’ve been here for five years.”

  I ignored him and slid closer—not close enough to be obvious, just enough to let their voices travel.

  “Can’t wait to see me in Mage Football?” Malachi asked, rubbing his hands—half-joking, half-preening.

  September tilted her head, eyes scanning left and right as if checking for traps. “Not much of a surprise, to be honest. Every single guy is joining.”

  “I’m sure it’s because they want to impress somebody,” Malachi said, irony thick. “I just love the game.”

  “Surprising,” she said, considering him.

  “Why is that surprising?” he volleyed, smiling like he genuinely wanted to know the answer.

  “Because you have to keep the girl morale up, don’t you?” she said, dry, amused.

  He turned, and the way his gaze cut toward the corner made me look too. Three blondes tried and failed to look like they hadn’t been staring; they squealed into their hands like it was their job description. Malachi sighed—not irritated, just… familiar with the phenomenon. “Are you going to come or not?” he asked September.

  She watched him for a breath and then smirked. “Of course.”

  Dismay wobbled into my stomach. Before it settled, Tisiah seized my shoulders and rattled me with excitement.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “The opportunity has come!” he declared, shaking me hard enough to jostle my soul.

  “What opportunity?”

  “September is going to the game. And Malachi’s going to try to impress her,” he said, smile wide enough to be its own lighting rig.

  “She doesn’t care,” I said, sitting on the edge of the long lunch table. “She literally just questioned his intentions.”

  “You really think Malachi’s taking it that way?” Tisiah asked, rubbing his temples. He didn’t wait for me to answer. “He’s going to use it. He’ll make the game the reason to get a reaction out of her. She likes to think she’s unbreakable rock—but there’s always a point where interest starts. Especially with him. He’s the most popular person in the academy.”

  “So what do I do?” I asked, because questions feel like control even when they aren’t.

  Nikki crouched beside me, finally registering in my vision that she’d put on a version of the uniform—white jacket, long dress that was flattering and clearly trying to kill her circulation, belt cinched like a threat.

  “You make sure you’re the defining factor on your team,” she said. “Two things can happen: one, you get September’s attention and she’s interested in you; or two, you get the attention of at least fifty-five percent of the school, and the wave carries to September and then she’s interested; or three—both.”

  “That will get September’s attention and—”

  “So this is my best bet?” I cut in, needing the summary.

  Nikki smiled. “Yes. This is your chance to get… September.”

  The pause after get wasn’t mean; it was simply the moment she used to choose words. Still, something quiet passed in that pause—solemn, almost. Then the cafeteria’s hum shifted.

  Agents.

  Not just one or two—the room seemed to crease, and men and women in suits poured in from the main entrance and the field-side doors. Movement snapped across the tables like a flock of birds turning. The agents headed straight for Malachi, peeled him off his group, and moved him out in a tight circle. I leaned to catch a phrase, a hint—anything—but the cafeteria’s normal noise rose into a protective curtain, and I caught exactly zero.

  “Oh—” I said, eloquent as always.

  Nikki and Tisiah looked at me, faces a triangle of concern, curiosity, and that special brand of annoyance reserved for things Malachi-related.

  “It’s like Malachi is Mr. Drails himself,” Tisiah said, aggravated. “Also, what do you mean by ‘oh’?”

  “Just as confused as you are,” I said, and that wasn’t a stall—it was the truth. My heart had decided beating was a competitive sport. Malachi disappearing beneath a swarm of agents didn’t feel like normal anymore. It felt like the day had picked a new plot.

  17:00

  The bell finally yanked us out of Mr. Robbs’s class. He’d rolled into the new unit Friday and gifted us another DBQ like a curse. It felt like he’d stapled together a novella and called it a question. My wrist had gone numb three document excerpts ago; my brain was a slow, dignified fog. The hallway felt like oxygen.

  I slung my bag over my shoulder and was halfway to the door when movement snagged my attention. Jamal. That jacket of his looked like it had been attacked by a graffiti hurricane and then congratulated. He was moving with unusual urgency—not the swaggering stroll he used when he wanted the hallway to notice him, but an arrow’s pace. Purposeful. Head down. No commentary.

  I knew exactly what I had to do.