The training room had stopped feeling like a cage.

  Not because it was friendly—reinforced walls didn’t become welcoming just because you survived yesterday—but because Mino was learning the shape of her own limits. The floor didn’t scare her the way it had on day one. The targets didn’t feel like accusations anymore.

  They felt like questions.

  Zach stood on the sideline with a tablet, one arm still wrapped in a bandage he pretended didn’t exist. The bruising on his wrist had faded to sickly yellow. He moved like it didn’t hurt.

  Mino had learned he did that on purpose. If he acted fragile, she’d act fragile, and the ember inside her would take it as permission.

  “Again,” Zach said.

  Mino exhaled and raised her hands.

  This time she didn’t chase the surge. She didn’t reach for anger like a lever. She held onto quiet—a controlled, named quiet that didn’t pretend she was okay. It just accepted that she wasn’t and did the work anyway.

  The suspended ball slid along its track in a smooth, measured line.

  Green.

  Her shoulders loosened.

  Zach nodded. “Better.”

  Mino swallowed the impulse to grin. Pride still felt dangerous—like it might tempt the ember into thinking it was in charge. But she couldn’t deny the truth either.

  She was getting stronger.

  Footsteps echoed in the hall—heavier than Zach’s—paired with a second set that landed with a strange, precise rhythm, like someone who always knew exactly where their feet would go.

  The door opened and two people stepped in.

  One was tall and lean, travel gear scuffed by long miles. Sandy hair, calm face, and a bored confidence that read as competence instead of arrogance. Asterbound, Mino guessed—but not the hungry, unstable kind she’d seen on the streets. This one carried himself like he had a job and time was the enemy.

  The other was shorter, wrapped in a long coat despite the warm air, mirrored goggles pushed up on their forehead. Their eyes moved too fast, scanning corners, ceiling angles, target layout. Mino couldn’t tell if they were nervous or simply built that way.

  Zach didn’t turn, but his voice shifted—more official. “Trent. Sensor.”

  Trent lifted two fingers. “Zach.”

  Sensor’s gaze landed on Mino and lingered—evaluating, curious, not unkind. “That her?”

  Mino bristled. That her. Like she was a line item.

  Zach caught it. “This is Mino,” he said evenly. “Mino, Trent. Sensor. They’re passing through.”

  Trent smiled a little. “Heard you made a streetlight explode.”

  Mino’s cheeks warmed. “It… wasn’t a streetlight, it was—” She stopped. She wasn’t going to explain herself to strangers.

  Sensor’s mouth twitched. “Kid’s got bite.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Mino snapped.

  Trent raised his hands slightly. “Didn’t say you were.”

  Her ears flattened anyway. She hated that her body betrayed her first. Hated that people saw half before they saw person.

  Zach stepped just enough to anchor her—between, not blocking, just present. “They’ve got targets southeast,” he told her. “Union-adjacent trouble. They’re checking in before they move.”

  “Armageddon threads?” Mino asked before she could stop herself.

  Trent’s brows lifted. “You’ve been briefed.”

  Zach’s expression didn’t change. “Enough.”

  Sensor tilted their head. “How’s your control?”

  Mino’s jaw tightened. “Fine.”

  Zach didn’t rescue her. He just watched, letting the answer carry its own weight.

  Trent glanced around the room. “We’re not here to steal your trainee. We need supply authorization and a quick look at anomaly logs.”

  Sensor’s gaze flicked to Mino’s hands. “She’s one of the logs.”

  Mino clenched her fists. The ember stirred, irritated on her behalf.

  Zach’s voice cooled by a degree. “She’s not a log. She’s a person.”

  A beat of silence.

  Then Trent nodded, serious. “Fair.”

  Sensor’s expression softened a fraction. “Fair.”

  Mino swallowed, still annoyed she’d needed Zach to say it out loud.

  Trent shifted. “We’re rolling in ten. If you’ve got anything on Heroko’s movement, or the staff situation—”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed. “Garth hasn’t reported in.”

  Trent’s mouth tightened. “Still?”

  Zach didn’t answer. The lack of it said enough.

  Sensor muttered, “That’s bad.”

  Mino’s stomach twisted. She’d only known Garth briefly, but the weight he carried had been unmistakable. The kind of man who kept moving because stopping meant feeling everything.

  She glanced toward the quieter wing—where people walked slower, where doors stayed shut.

  “Alisa?” Mino asked, quieter.

  Zach’s gaze flicked to her. “She’s around.”

  Trent and Sensor exchanged a look—quick, subtle, loaded—then Trent cleared his throat. “We’ll get what we need and move. Stay alive, Zach.”

  Zach’s mouth twitched. “Try not to break anything expensive.”

  Trent grinned and headed out. Sensor lingered, looking at Mino like they were trying to memorize her shape.

  “Don’t let them put you in a box,” Sensor said, unexpectedly soft.

  Then they turned and followed Trent.

  Mino stood there, hands still faintly warm, irritation buzzing under her skin.

  Zach watched her. “You’re aggravated.”

  Mino glared. “Everyone thinks I’m just—small. Like I’m a problem to manage.”

  Zach nodded once. “You are small.”

  Her glare sharpened.

  He lifted a hand. “Physically. That’s not an insult. It’s a fact. The point is—your power isn’t. And neither is your grief.”

  Mino’s throat tightened.

  “People try to translate you into something they can handle,” Zach went on. “‘Kid.’ ‘Asset.’ ‘Threat.’ That’s what brains do when they’re scared.”

  “I can help,” Mino said, voice too tight.

  “I know.”

  “Then why do they talk around me like I’m not here?”

  Zach’s eyes stayed steady. “Because they think they’re protecting you.”

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  “I don’t want protection,” Mino snapped. “I want—”

  The rest lodged in her throat like broken glass.

  I want my family back.

  She swallowed it down. “I want to matter.”

  Zach’s tone softened. “You do.”

  Mino’s hands unclenched slowly. The ember pressed, searching for a crack—wanting her frustration turned into heat.

  She didn’t give it one.

  Instead she looked away. “I want to check on Alisa.”

  Zach hesitated, then nodded. “Go.”

  Alisa was in the common area by the small kitchen, sitting at a table with a bowl of something untouched in front of her.

  She looked up when Mino entered and her face brightened immediately—like light finding a crack to slip through.

  “Mino,” Alisa said, relief threading her voice in a way that made Mino’s chest ache.

  Mino sat across from her. “Hi.”

  Alisa tried to smile properly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She looked tired. Not the kind you fixed with sleep—the kind you got from waking up.

  Mino nodded at the bowl. “You’re not eating.”

  Alisa’s fingers tightened around her spoon. “I’m not hungry.”

  Mino watched her a moment, then spoke carefully. “Is it because of Garth?”

  Alisa’s gaze dropped. “He… he always comes back.” She said it like a rule she had to keep repeating so the world wouldn’t break it.

  Mino didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’t know Alisa’s full story—only that Garth’s name lived under her skin like a heartbeat.

  “He’s tough,” Mino said.

  Alisa gave a small, sad laugh. “So is everyone who leaves. Until they don’t.”

  Mino’s throat tightened. She understood that sentence too well.

  After a moment she said, “I can help. If they’d let me.”

  Alisa looked up, eyes softening. “They will. They’re just… scared.”

  “Of me?” Mino asked, sharper than she meant.

  Alisa shook her head quickly. “No. Of losing you too.”

  Mino blinked, surprised by the honesty.

  Alisa reached across the table and touched Mino’s hand lightly, like asking permission. “I like having you here,” she whispered. “It’s… less empty.”

  Mino’s eyes stung. She didn’t trust her voice, so she nodded.

  Alisa picked up her spoon and made herself take a bite. Small. Forced. But it was movement.

  Mino let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  Zach didn’t get a quiet day.

  He rarely did.

  The Asterbound came at him on a corridor that wasn’t supposed to have anything on it—an empty stretch near the supply access tunnels where the lights buzzed and the cameras always had blind spots no matter how often they were fixed.

  She stepped out of shadow like she’d been poured from it.

  Black hair cut short. Eyes too bright. A smile that didn’t belong to anyone who’d ever wanted peace.

  Zach stopped. His hand didn’t go to a weapon—not immediately. He’d learned a long time ago that some Bound wanted you to reach first.

  “You’re far from home,” she said, almost playful.

  Zach studied her. He felt the pressure at once—not physical, but mental, like a fingertip pressing the inside of his skull.

  A mind-talker.

  He kept his voice even. “That depends on what you think home is.”

  She laughed softly. “Clever.”

  The pressure increased.

  Images flickered at the edge of his vision—memories trying to surface without permission. Faces. Names. A girl laughing in sunlight. A man collapsing. A corridor on fire.

  Zach’s jaw tightened.

  “Oh,” she murmured, pleased. “There’s a lot in there.”

  “Get out of my head.”

  “I don’t think I will.”

  She pushed.

  For a second Zach’s thoughts didn’t feel like his. His internal voice twisted into hers, whispering things he didn’t believe:

  You failed. You’re weak. Hurt yourself before you hurt them.

  His hands flexed. His knees threatened to fold.

  The mind-talker’s smile widened. “Go on. Make it easy. You’re so tired already.”

  The temptation was real—not because he wanted to die, but because a brain under attack will beg for anything that feels like relief.

  Then Zach did the one thing she didn’t expect.

  He laughed.

  Not joy.

  Just sharp.

  She blinked. “What—”

  “You’re rummaging through rooms I built locks for,” Zach said.

  He grounded himself the way he’d taught Mino: breath, naming, focus. But his focus wasn’t moving a disc.

  His focus was hold the line.

  He took one step forward.

  Her smile faltered as she realized her pressure wasn’t moving him the way it should.

  “You resist,” she said, annoyed now.

  “Yeah.”

  She pushed harder. The corridor lights flickered.

  His head throbbed. Copper filled his mouth. Memories surged like floodwater.

  But he didn’t drown.

  Zach reached into his pocket and snapped a small metal ring between his fingers—a vavic dampener charm, faintly humming. It wasn’t strong enough to stop her completely, but it made her intrusion noisy. Blunt. Less precise.

  The mind-talker winced.

  Zach moved.

  Fast.

  He closed the distance before she could adjust, grabbed her wrist, and drove his elbow into her ribs. The impact landed with a dull crunch.

  She gasped. Her focus broke for a heartbeat.

  Zach spent that heartbeat like oxygen.

  He twisted her arm, pinned her to the wall, and slapped a second dampener charm against her throat where her pulse hammered.

  Her eyes flashed. “Get off—!”

  Zach leaned in, voice low. “Don’t ever crawl into my mind again.”

  He hit her once—hard enough to drop her to a knee.

  She staggered back, clutching her side, breathing ragged. Hate flared in her eyes—and calculation.

  Then she smiled again, wounded and gleaming.

  “I saw things,” she whispered. “So many things.”

  Zach’s stomach tightened.

  The mind-talker took one step back into shadow. “Tell Marten… it’s already started.”

  Zach lunged—

  But she was gone, slipping away like a thought you couldn’t hold.

  He stood in the flickering corridor, breathing hard, head pounding.

  Not because she’d hurt him.

  Because she’d seen him.

  And whatever she’d come looking for… she’d found enough to report.

  Marten’s office smelled like old paper and hot circuitry.

  He was exactly the kind of man you expected to run a region—calm, clean-cut, eyes that missed nothing, voice that never rose because it didn’t need to.

  Zach stood across from him, arms folded, pretending his skull didn’t still ache.

  Marten looked up from a report. “You look like you lost a conversation.”

  Zach snorted. “Mind-talker. Tried to fold me.”

  Marten’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Here?”

  Zach nodded. “Near the access tunnels. She got in farther than I liked.”

  Marten set the report down carefully, like it mattered less than Zach’s discomfort. “Did she take anything?”

  “She explored,” Zach said. “I don’t know what she saw.”

  Marten studied him. “If she left alive, she wanted you to know she’d been inside.”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not worried.”

  “I’m always worried,” Marten said. “I’m just not surprised.”

  “She said it’s already started.”

  Marten’s gaze sharpened for a fraction, then smoothed again. “Armageddon has been ‘starting’ for months. People like her just like saying it dramatically.”

  Zach didn’t like the dismissal. He didn’t like how easy Marten made it sound.

  “My mind got explored,” Zach said, slower. “If she saw what I think she saw—”

  Marten lifted a hand. “Then we adjust. We harden protocols. We don’t panic.”

  Zach stared at him. “You’re too calm.”

  Marten’s mouth twitched. “And you’re too emotional. That’s why we work.”

  Zach didn’t smile.

  Marten tapped the folder. “Any news on Garth?”

  Zach’s throat tightened. “Not directly.”

  “Then focus on your assignment,” Marten said. “Keep Mino stable. Keep Alisa functional. If Garth comes back, we’ll handle it.”

  Zach’s hands tightened briefly into fists.

  He turned to leave, then paused at the door.

  “Marten.”

  Marten looked up.

  “If someone’s sending mind-talkers into our halls, it’s because they’re mapping us,” Zach said. “And if they’re mapping us, it’s because they plan to hit us.”

  Marten held his gaze. “Let them map. We’ll make sure the maze changes.”

  Zach left unconvinced.

  By evening, HQ carried a new tension—one that didn’t come from alarms, but from waiting.

  Mino felt it in quieter voices. In doors that stayed shut a little longer. In how Zach’s smile didn’t show up at all after his meeting with Marten.

  She was in the training room again—push and hold, push and hold—when a runner appeared at the door and spoke to Zach in a hurried whisper.

  Zach’s expression tightened.

  He looked at Mino. “Break time.”

  Mino frowned. “What happened?”

  “A report came in,” Zach said.

  He didn’t say from who. He didn’t say what it said.

  But minutes later, Mino saw the operations hall screen flash an update—grainy footage of desert night, three figures, and the unmistakable silhouette of Heroko’s cloak.

  A still frame froze on the moment the staff fractured.

  SOUL STAFF: BROKEN

  STATUS: HEAD SECURED (GARTH)

  STATUS: POLE SEGMENT UNACCOUNTED (HEROKO ESCAPED)

  Mino stared until the words blurred.

  Beside her, Alisa went pale.

  “Garth did that,” Alisa whispered, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to believe it.

  Mino looked at her. “It means he’s alive.”

  Alisa’s shoulders sagged with relief that almost looked like pain.

  Mino’s chest tightened too—but not with relief.

  With fear.

  Because if breaking the staff hadn’t stopped Heroko…

  Then all they’d done was change the shape of the disaster.

  And somewhere out there, a mind-talker had walked out of HQ smiling.

  Mino flexed her hands, feeling the ember shift, restless.

  For the first time since arriving at HQ, she didn’t feel like the world might end someday.

  She felt like it was being scheduled.

  And somebody had just confirmed the date.