The internal radio was currently set to maximum volume.

  ‘Don’t stop me now! I’m having such a good time! I’m having a ball!’

  Freddie Mercury’s voice echoed through the cavernous architecture of our shared mind, bouncing off the steel-reinforced walls of the ‘Callus’ like a rubber ball in a crypt. I had the mental volume dial turned until the needle was buried in the red. It was loud enough to rattle the teeth of a dragon. The ‘Callus’ was the conceptual part of our shared mind where Murphy existed, and apparently, nothing was loud enough to wake him if he was still there.

  “Come on, Kid. We have work to do.”

  Calling him "Kid" was an inside joke. I knew he wasn't a child—he never was—and it wasn’t because of the day I woke up in this shared skull. He was just a seventeen-year-old boy. It came from a movie we watched one night in the archives of his memory: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was a movie we both loved dearly. I was always teasing him that I was Butch and he was the Sundance Kid. He hated it, of course. His argument was always that he was the leader and I was the sidekick. My plan was simple. I just needed to goad him into saying something. That’s all.

  ‘I’m playing Queen. You love Queen. It’s logically impossible to be depressed while listening to this song. Just... give me a knock. Tell me I’m an idiot. Anything.’

  Nothing.

  I sighed—a mental exhale that translated into a sharp, physical intake of breath in the waking world. I opened my eyes.

  The dormitory ceiling was exactly where I’d left it. The morning light was streaming through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. The room was quiet, save for the soft chirps of birds outside. I sat up, instinctively bracing for the agony of shattered ribs and a punctured lung.

  It never came.

  Pippa was a miracle worker. My chest rose and fell without a hitch. The deep, rattling wheeze was gone, replaced by the smooth, efficient intake of oxygen. My muscles felt dense, charged with the vibrant thrum of the Green Core. Physically, I was in the best shape this body had been in since its conception.

  Mentally, I was driving a hearse.

  I swung my legs out of bed. I didn't groan. I stood up and dressed with mechanical efficiency. Tunic. Trousers. Boots. Belt. I didn't fumble. I didn't yawn. I moved like a soldier on deployment, stripping the morning routine of any comfort or ritual. I made the bed, pulling the sheets so tight a coin would bounce off them.

  "Right," I muttered to the empty room. "Let’s get this administrative nightmare over with."

  Four clones materialised in the centre of the room with maximum mana. They weren't dressed for combat. They were the nobodies; clones with forgettable faces and common clothes. Their job was simple. They would head to the Tannery to create more clones to both meditate and keep the laundry running.

  The clones gave a quick salute and promptly left the room.

  I stepped back and looked at the space. It felt sterile with the bed made so tightly, but as I looked around, the sterility faded, replaced by a grudging admiration for what Murphy had actually done here.

  When we first arrived, this place had been a dungeon—damp stone, rotting straw, and the smell of despair. Now? It was a home.

  "Mundane stuff doesn't cost that much," he had argued when I questioned the expense. Trauma from his past lives created a deep hate for the dorms echo. He said he would rather sleep outside than in a place that looked like a dungeon.

  Soft, warm mana lights were embedded in the sconces, casting a golden glow that chased away the shadows of the crypt. He had ripped out the rot and replaced it with new, polished wooden furniture that smelled of pine and beeswax. Thick, plush carpets covered the cold stone floors, and heavy velvet curtains framed the windows, blocking out the drafts.

  I walked out into the corridor, my boots silent on the new runners. Even the hallway had been transformed. Simple clay pots filled with hardy ferns and shade-loving plants lined the walls, breathing life into the stone.

  I stopped at the bathroom door. This was his masterpiece.

  I pushed the door open, revealing a tiled floor that gleamed under the magical lights. He had connected the plumbing—actual, functioning plumbing. No more shitting in a hole in an outhouse in the freezing rain. But the piece de resistance was the large copper tank on the roof.

  Murphy had inscribed a steel transfer pole running through the centre of the tank with a complex array of thermal runes. It was a simple, brilliant mechanism: a student just had to push a tiny amount of mana into the wall plate, and the steel turned it into heat, warming the water for the entire dorm.

  I walked past the Common Room on my way out. It looked like a tavern from a high-end district. He had built a custom bar along the far wall, complete with tapped kegs and rows of ceramic mugs hanging from hooks. It was a place designed for laughter, for camaraderie, for life.

  He had done all of this—the lights, the heat, the comfort—against my better judgment. I had told him to save the gold for gear. I had told him it was a waste of resources.

  I was wrong.

  It wasn't a waste. It was a declaration that we were not just surviving here; we were living.

  I almost sang the words as I said, ‘I’m going to breakfast,’ to the silence in my head, feeling a tiny spike of genuine anxiety. ‘I’ll have to talk to people… You know how quickly that could turn into a duel to the death...’

  The Callus remained shut.

  ---

  I walked to the mess hall alone. The corridors of House Argent were bustling with students, but the usual chatter about homework and duels was absent. Instead, the air was thick with urgent, hushed whispers.

  "...heard the whole East Wing collapsed..."

  "...Voss Estate..."

  "...said it was a demon. My father sent a letter this morning, saying the City Guard is locking down the district..."

  I walked through them like a ghost, my face set in a rigid mask of concentration. The heist wasn't just a theft anymore; it was the news of the day.

  The squad was already there, clustered at our usual table near the back. Usually, this was the time for Murphy’s chaotic recounting of his dreams, or a heated debate about which Second Year Captain was the biggest tyrant. It was usually loud, messy, and warm.

  Today, it was a wake.

  I sat down. I didn't say hello. I didn't crack a joke about the grey sludge the Academy dared to call porridge. I simply picked up my spoon.

  To my left, Grace was staring into her tea as if she expected a sea monster to surface from the depths. Her hands were trembling slightly, the ceramic cup rattling against the saucer every time the whispers from the nearby tables drifted over. She looked terrified, her eyes darting to the door every few seconds, expecting the city guard to burst in.

  Beside her, Pippa looked like she had been electrocuted. She was jumpy, flinching every time a piece of cutlery clattered against a plate. She knew. She had seen the Inventory. She had seen the Clones. She was already calculating how much trouble her association with "Murphy" would cost her.

  And then there was Finn.

  He sat across from us, blissfully unaware of the tension. He was chewing on a piece of toast, looking surprisingly cheerful, as if the previous night’s exclusion hadn't happened—or perhaps he had simply chosen to forget it in the face of the morning's excitement.

  "You guys hear?" Finn asked, leaning in, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. "Someone hit the Voss Estate last night. Like, hit it. They say a massive section of the factory just... vanished. Popped out of existence."

  Grace flinched so hard she spilt hot tea on her hand. Pippa dropped her spoon with a loud clatter.

  I didn't move. I just kept eating my porridge, methodically, one spoonful at a time.

  "My cousin in the Guard said they found traces of high-level corrosion magic," Finn continued, oblivious to the panic radiating off the girls. "They think it was a hit squad from the Rebel Faction. Or maybe a rival House."

  He took another bite of toast, shaking his head in admiration. "Crazy, right? Imagine having the stones to break into a Prime-guarded fortress."

  Finn laughed, looking around the table for agreement. "I mean, whoever did it must be insane or—"

  He stopped.

  His eyes landed on Grace, who was frantically wiping tea off her hand with a napkin, her face pale as a sheet. Then he looked at Pippa, who was staring at her plate like it was a death sentence.

  Finally, he looked at me.

  He looked at the way I was sitting—spine rigid, eyes flat, eating with mechanical precision. He looked at the bruises I hadn't bothered to hide under my collar.

  The smile slowly slid off Finn’s face.

  I saw the moment it happened. The lightbulb flickered and turned on behind his eyes. The pieces of the puzzle clicked together with a deafening mental snap.

  He didn't ask. He didn't accuse.

  He just slowly lowered his toast to his plate. The camaraderie in his eyes evaporated, replaced by a cold, dawn-breaking realisation. He looked at me not as a friend, but as a stranger he suddenly didn't recognise. The look wasn't just fear; it was a profound, wounding distrust.

  ‘Say something,’ I urged myself. ‘Be normal. Be Murphy. Defuse this.’

  I looked at the bowl of porridge. I tried to summon the ghost of my friend’s wit. I tried to find a joke, a deflection, a lie.

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  "The... oats," I said, my voice sounding flat and authoritative, as if I were reading a logistics report. "Not bad today. Might even call them adequate."

  The table went deadly silent.

  Finn didn't respond. He just stared at me, the silence stretching between us like a loaded bowstring. He knew. And he knew that we hadn't trusted him enough to tell him.

  The silence was finally murdered, not by a scream, but by the sharp, porcelain CLACK of a teacup being slammed into its saucer.

  Vespera Wintermoon did not do things by accident. The noise was calculated—a percussive stunning strike designed to snap the squad out of their collective fugue state.

  "Enough," she stated. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the breakfast din like a diamond cutter. "Look at you. You look like the survivors of a carriage accident."

  She leaned in, her eyes darting around the table with frantic intensity. "Tonight is not a social event. It is a shark tank. The Expedition Draft is where the Third Years decide who lives and who dies in the Mist-Valley. And right now? I am terrified that simply sitting near you people is going to cost me my commission."

  She adjusted her silk gloves, her knuckles white. "I have worked too hard to be relegated to Base Camp logistics because my squad looks like they are waiting for an execution. Captains look for reliability. You are radiating liability."

  I blinked. It was the first time I had ever heard genuine fear in Vespera’s voice. She was ambitious, and we were an anchor dragging her down.

  ‘She has a point,’ I noted internally. ‘But isolation is tactical suicide.’

  "Vespera is correct regarding the optics," I stated, my voice cutting through the tension. "But individual entry is a mistake. If we fracture now, we will be picked off one by one and assigned to sanitation duty."

  I looked around the table. Finn was sulking. Grace was shaking. Pippa was terrified. Vespera was doubting. Even Kael was… no, Kael was just his usual self.

  I couldn’t have the team get split up. It’s the only way to keep them all safe. But more importantly, I needed to wake Murphy up. And I knew exactly how to do it. Murphy would pick safety, especially when the payoff would be honour and social standing. Pushing for a spot in the vanguard should annoy him enough to wake up and say something.

  "We do not hide," I announced, my voice dropping an octave. "We leverage the asset we already own."

  "Asset?" Finn scoffed bitterly, not looking at me. "What asset? The crippling anxiety?"

  "Reputation," I corrected. "We are the squad that broke House Vermilion. We show this academy and the upperclassmen that we are not individuals. We are a Team."

  I leaned forward, placing my hands flat on the table.

  "We enter the ball as a unit. The moment we walk in, Vespra will volunteer our squad to the third-year commanders for the Vanguard."

  Grace choked on her tea. "The Vanguard? Murphy, weren’t you against joining the Vanguard."

  "Opinions change," I lied smoothly. "At basecamp we can get separated and picked off individually. We stay together. We watch each other's backs."

  ‘Come on, kid,’ I thought, projecting the intent loudly into the silence of my skull. ‘I’m signing you up for the suicide squad. Front lines. Monsters. No sleep. Wake up and stop me.’

  Silence.

  I suppressed a sigh. At least the squad was listening.

  Vespera was staring at me, her eyes narrowing as she calculated the political math. She looked at the terrified faces of Pippa and Grace, then back to the stoic mask I was wearing.

  "A package deal," she mused. "Using the Vermilion victory as leverage... It’s bold. Arrogant."

  A slow, predatory smile spread across her face.

  "I like it."

  She sat up straighter, the fear evaporating as she switched into commander mode. "But if we are doing this, we do it properly. We don't just walk in like a herd of sheep. We make an entrance."

  She pointed a gloved finger at me. "We need to project power and stability. We arrive in a single carriage, but we enter in strategic pairs."

  She gestured between herself and me. "Murphy, you and I are the heavy hitters. High offensive output. We take the lead. We signal that this squad has teeth."

  She turned her gaze to the end of the table. "Finn. Grace. You take the flank and enter behind us."

  Finn looked up, surprised to be included in the strategy. He looked at me, his eyes still cold with distrust, but the desire to be part of the 'team' warred with his pride. He glanced at Grace, who looked like she needed a shield.

  "Fine," Finn grunted, stabbing a sausage. "I’ll watch the flank. But only to make sure no one stabs us in the back."

  The double meaning hung in the air, heavy and sharp.

  "Good," Vespera ignored the tension, pivoting to the last pair. "Kael. Pippa. You are the rear guard. Support and heavy defence. Kael, you make sure Pippa doesn't get trampled. Pippa, you make sure Kael doesn't look like he's going to murder the cutlery."

  The massive youth from the Iron-Reach paused his chewing. He looked at Pippa, who gave a small, terrified nod. Kael didn't speak. He just raised a thumb.

  "Excellent," Vespera declared, standing up and smoothing her skirt. "We rendezvous at nineteen-hundred hours in the common room. I will arrange the carriage. Do not be late. And for the love of the Gods, try to look like you belong in a ballroom, not a triage tent."

  I watched her go. Effective. Ruthless.

  ‘She would have made a decent adjutant,’ I thought.

  I stood up, leaving my half-eaten porridge. I could feel Finn’s eyes boring into the side of my head, waiting for an explanation I couldn't give.

  "I have logistics to manage," I stated to the table. "Nineteen-hundred."

  I walked away without looking back, marching toward the door with a spine as stiff as a rod, praying that by the time nineteen-hundred hours rolled around, the real Murphy would be the one wearing the suit.

  ---

  I bypassed the rental shops on the main thoroughfare. They were a riot of desperate First Years fighting over moth-eaten velvet and ill-fitting doublets. The air smelled of panic, cheap perfume, and bad decisions.

  I wasn't interested in a costume. I needed a uniform.

  I turned down a quiet side street, heading towards the artisans' quarter. I found a shop with no mannequin in the window, just a heavy oak door and a discreet brass sign that read: Garrick & Sons. Bespoke Clothiers.

  A bell chimed softly as I entered. The interior smelled of beeswax and expensive wool.

  "We are by appointment only," a voice called out from the back.

  An elderly man with spectacles perched on his nose emerged from behind a bolt of midnight-blue silk. He looked at my bruised face and dust-covered clothes with immediate disdain.

  I placed a heavy stack of gold coins on the mahogany counter.

  CLACK.

  It was an obscene amount of money. Enough to feed a family for a year.

  I could have used Mimicry. I could have woven a tuxedo out of shadow and light in a heartbeat for absolutely zero cost. But 'free' wouldn't register. Murphy guarded his gold like a dragon. If signing us up for a suicide mission didn't wake him, burning through his retirement fund on high-thread-count vanity surely would.

  "I have an appointment with urgency," I stated, my voice flat. "And I pay a premium for silence and speed."

  The tailor looked at the gold. His disdain evaporated, replaced by professional curiosity. "What do you require, young sir?"

  "A dress uniform," I ordered. "Imperial style. White tunic. Heavy weave. High, stiffened collar with crimson facing and gold trim."

  "White is... bold," he muttered, reaching for his measuring tape. "Especially for a student."

  "I want heavy gold epaulettes," I continued, ignoring him. "With the fringe. And gold braiding across the chest—Hussar style. Trousers in white, gold piping down the seam. Tucked into black knee-high boots polished until they look like obsidian."

  The tailor paused, his pen hovering over his notebook. "That is a very specific palette. It is... aggressive."

  "It is."

  I grabbed a piece of tailor’s chalk and drew a symbol on the slate counter.

  It was a circle, eclipsed by a vertical blade. A sun being split by a sword.

  The sigil of House Sunstrider.

  "Embroider this on the left breast. Gold thread. Make it visible."

  The tailor stared at the crest. It was an old symbol, one that hadn't been worn in polite society for a long time. He looked at me, then at the gold.

  "I can have it ready by six," the tailor said, his voice dropping a decibel. "But it will cost double."

  "Triple," I countered. "If the fit is perfect."

  I waited for the mental scream. I waited for Murphy to wake up and yell at me for spending a fortune on a uniform that was essentially a target painted on our chest.

  ‘Nothing?‘ I projected into the silence.

  There was no answer. Just the scratching of the tailor's pen.

  ---

  Three hours later, I stood before the mirror.

  The uniform was a weapon. The white tunic was unforgiving, constructed of a heavy weave that forced my spine into a rigid, regal line. With the black leather gloves and the knee-high boots polished to a mirror shine, I looked like I had walked out of a history book—specifically, the chapter on conquest.

  I adjusted the ceremonial sword at my hip, feeling a strange, hollow ache in my chest as I traced the gold Sunstrider crest embroidered over my heart.

  ‘What do you think, Murphy? A bit much? Or just enough to terrify the nobles?’

  The silence stretched, answering me with a void where a sarcastic quip should have been. I turned away from the mirror.

  "It will do."

  Then it hit me. The laundry clones I had sent out this morning had finished for the day and dispersed.

  The memory packet hit me like a physical blow.

  I gripped the edge of the mahogany table, my knuckles turning white as a thousand disparate threads of information stitched themselves into my brain in a single, agonising second. I had led legions into battle; I had organised sieges and supply lines. But I was utterly unprepared for the sheer, grinding bureaucracy of the Jester’s Laundry.

  It wasn't just "cleaning". It was a ballet of the absurd.

  I saw through eight pairs of eyes at once. I lived eight shifts in a microsecond.

  I felt the precise weight of every portal we used. I recalled the exact sensation of the Inventory sucking in mountains of fabric, and the mental grind that followed. There were no chemicals, no water, no scrubbing. It was an endless, repetitive act of metaphysical surgery—isolating the dirt, the grease, and the bodily fluids from the fibre, and banishing the filth into the Void while leaving the silk intact.

  I felt the phantom texture of a thousand sheets stained with things I didn't want to identify, forced to mentally separate the bio-hazard from the bedding.

  Why are people so disgusting?

  The logistics were a nightmare. I felt the headache of tracking forty-two separate delivery tags, ensuring that a noble’s silk smallclothes didn't end up in a commoner's bin. I remembered the precise, wheedling tone needed to handle a delivery partner who was trying to hike the price on the Dawn Gate route by ten percent for "protection fees."

  Murphy didn't just clean clothes. He managed a multi-front diplomatic war on a daily basis.

  I gasped, my vision swimming as the feedback subsided. I had always thought of his business as a 'little hustle'—busy work to keep him occupied while I did the 'real work' of forging the Core via the Solar Crucible.

  ‘Murphy,’ I whispered to the empty room, my voice trembling with a new, profound respect. ‘I am an idiot. I could command a phalanx with a glance, but I couldn't keep this operation running for an hour without getting us hanged or bankrupt.’

  The silence from the Callus felt heavier now. I realised that while I was the architect of our power, he was the builder. He was the one laying the bricks, understanding the cost of a loaf of bread and the lethal value of a well-timed bribe.

  I stood up, the white gold-trimmed coat swirling around my boots.

  "It’s time to visit management."

  ---

  The Temple District was a monument to silence. I walked until I reached a humble shrine tucked away in the shadows, far from the grand cathedrals of the major deities.

  The Shrine of Ludo.

  I stood before the simple stone fountain. The water was dark and still, reflecting the sharp, crimson collar of the uniform. It was pristine, and I felt like a fraud wearing it alone.

  ‘Murphy,’ I projected. ‘Talk to me.’

  No answer. I sighed, leaning against the cold stone, flipping a gold coin over my knuckles.

  ‘We’re the inseparable team, Murphy,’ I whispered. ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’

  I stared at my reflection, watching the ripples distort the Sunstrider crest.

  ‘And obviously,’ I continued, trying to get a rise out of him, ‘Butch needs the Kid, Murphy.’

  I paused, waiting for the indignation. Waiting for him to scream that he was the leader and I was the sidekick. Still, nothing.

  ‘I still think about that movie a lot, you know…’

  The memory of the film played in my head. The cliff. The drop. The moment Sundance froze at the end.

  ‘You don't want to jump,’ I whispered to the reflection. ‘Because you think you can't swim. You think you’ve failed. Failed yourself… Failed us…’

  I caught the coin with a snap.

  ‘But it doesn’t matter if you can’t swim, Murphy. You might as well jump. Because the fall is probably going to kill us anyway.’

  I waited for a laugh. I waited for my partner to say ‘Hell with it’ and take the leap.

  ‘I can’t fight this war by myself.’

  The wind blew through the courtyard, carrying the chill of the coming night. Slowly, the realisation settled over me like a shroud: he wasn't coming back just because I goaded him.

  I looked at the coin in my hand, the gold glinting with the fickle promise of the God of Games. With a flick of my wrist, I tossed it into the centre of the dark pool. I wasn't praying; I was requesting a consultation.

  "Ludo," I whispered to the ripples. "He’s gone to ground. He won't answer. I need to know if this is permanent. I need to know how to bring him back."

  I watched the surface of the water, my breath hitching as the ripples began to behave unnaturally. The dark water swirled, and for a fleeting second, I thought the God of Games would manifest his manic, Joker-like grin to offer me a new deal.

  Instead, letters began to form in the silt and foam, illuminated by a faint, shifting light. They appeared and disappeared with the rhythmic apathy of a ticker-tape:

  BUSY. CALL BACK LATER.

  The water went flat and dead a moment later. No divine intervention. No loopholes. Just a celestial "out of office" reply.

  I pushed myself off the fountain, the heavy white fabric of my new uniform snapping in the wind.

  "You'd better wake up soon, Kid," I muttered to the silence in my skull. "Because I can't shoot my way out of this one alone."