We met in the tunnels that night.
Niko’s voice had been clipped over our burner line—only three words: “Meet me now.” That was enough.
The path down was damp and narrow, carved long before either of us had been born, when the Academy was little more than a cluster of buildings masquerading as a school. Now the tunnels sprawled like veins beneath the earth, connecting wings, dormitories, administrative strongholds. Forgotten things moved down here. Some of them were ours.
I found Niko crouched beneath a rusted junction hatch, his eyes catching the beam of my flashlight before the rest of him came into view.
“You came fast,” he murmured, standing.
“You said now,” I replied. “What’s going on?”
He handed me a drive, small and unmarked.
“This?” I asked, brows furrowed.
He nodded, jaw ti
