Liam swept his gaze across the courtyard of the Oracle Academy, cataloging every face that radiated dangerous confidence, every set of shoulders that moved with the coiled ease of someone who'd spent years in combat. There were at least a dozen high-level Practitioners scattered among the incoming students, and that was just what he could sense without reaching deeper into his Aether. The realization settled in his chest like a stone.
"How exactly am I supposed to pull off a heist with this many heavyweights in one place?" he thought, his jaw tightening. "The High Commander's wife had better not have set me up on purpose."
Before he could spiral further into that dark line of reasoning, a voice cut through the ambient noise of the courtyard, bright and breathless and unmistakable. Every
