Eleanor's fingers curled slightly behind her back, tension coiled beneath her usually pristine posture. Still no proof. Still no concrete signature to grasp. But instincts this sharp didn't lie.
She needed answers.
Her gaze swept over the group again—Sylvie, Irina, Layla, Jasmine—each still faintly tense beneath the shadow of what had just happened. The mont was waning, but the residual charge hadn't fully cleared. The mana in the air still tasted off.
She took a breath.
"Everyone," she said, tone calm but unmistakably final. "Leave us."
There was a beat of silence—brief, but thick.
Layla's expression imdiately fell. "Wait—Professor, Astron didn't do anything. If this is about—"
"Out," Eleanor repeated, sharper now. "This is between and him."
Irina didn't argue. She gave a slight nod and turned, guiding the others with quiet authority. Jasmine hesitated, throwing a glance toward Astron like she half-expected him to collapse under pressure. Sylvie lingered the longest, her eyes narrowing just slightly—not suspicious, but protective.
Eleanor said nothing more.
And eventually, they left.
Astron stood there, unmoving, hands at his sides, face unreadable.
He hadn't flinched. Hadn't sighed. Hadn't even tilted his head in that way he usually did when annoyed.
He just… waited.
Obeyed.
Because of course he did.
She approached, steps asured, the soft click of her boots echoing gently now that the others were gone. The air was quiet. Heavy.
She stopped a few paces away, staring directly into his eyes.
"…Leonard," she said.
Astron blinked once. No other change.
Eleanor's voice didn't rise. "Do you know him?"
Silence.
The air held.
And Eleanor didn't look away.
Because this wasn't about scolding him. It wasn't about a missed signal or a passive response. This was about what he might know. About what he might be hiding—if he was hiding anything.
And it began with that na.
Leonard.
His spell had been precise.
His posture, too calm.
His artifact—not regulation.
His intent…
Controlled.
Too controlled.
And Astron—of all people—had stood right in its eye and never blinked.
There was no way he hadn't felt that.
Astron remained motionless, and Eleanor watched him with a precision that would've made most seasoned cadets buckle.
Still no answer.
Still no shift in his posture.
But she wasn't expecting panic. Not from him. Not from Astron Natusalune.
'If anyone felt it,' she thought, 'it would've been him. Or Irina.'
She could dismiss the others—Jasmine and Layla were perceptive in their own ways, but not refined for this. Sylvie, perhaps, might have sensed sothing faint. But she didn't have the training to interpret it.
But Astron?
He had no excuse.
'When I arrived, Leonard's intent was already narrowed. Controlled. Clean. But the angle… the way his aura was balanced… it wasn't toward the group.'
Her jaw tensed slightly.
'It was angled forward. Not wide enough to be a threat. Just… precise enough to cover one person.'
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
'You.'
It hadn't made sense at first. Leonard had appeared cordial, passive, composed. But she had felt the sliver of pressure beneath it all. Not openly hostile—but ready. Taut.
And the second flare—brief, quiet, like a whisper hidden in a scream—it had centered near Astron.
'Maybe Leonard felt it too. Maybe that's why he was staring at you like that. Because he sensed sothing strange and thought it ca from you. Because it did co from you… didn't it?'
She didn't speak those words aloud. Not yet.
But her eyes held them.
And Astron… t them.
Unblinking.
Unmoving.
But not dismissive, either.
And that, sohow, was worse.
'There must be a connection. Leonard was too calculated. That spell wasn't just for show—it was a probe. A test. The way it climbed the sky, the way it structured itself like a ritualized spear of intent—it was built to draw sothing out.'
She rembered how the mana reacted as she approached.
The first flare: clean. High-caliber, but nothing irregular.
The second flare: thick. Quiet. Structured in a way that absorbed attention rather than demanded it.
It had made her breath catch—not from power, but from its composition.
'That energy… it was dense. Familiar, but not elental. Not psionic. It wasn't even just refined. It was aligned.'
And it had felt like it ca from Astron.
'You didn't flinch. You didn't blink. You just stood there like it was nothing. And maybe that's what scares the most.'
Eleanor didn't move. Her breath was slow. Her posture didn't shift.
But her eyes—her eyes were sharper than any blade in Arcadia.
"Astron," she said again, voice quiet but final. "Answer ."
And at last, he did.
"No," he said. "I don't know Leonard. Today was the first ti I've seen him."
His tone was calm. Not defensive. Not vague. Just… flat. Honest, or made to sound that way.
Eleanor's gaze didn't soften.
He added, "He's Sylvie's brother. And he asked to et her team. That's why we were all out together."
She watched him a mont longer. Watched for the smallest flicker—a twitch of the eye, a pause in the breath, the slight misalignnt of phrasing. Any imperfection that would betray a lie.
There was none.
"..." Her lips pressed into a thinner line. Still no expression on her face. But her mind worked behind the stillness like a thousand cascading glyphs.
Nothing in his voice betrayed it.
Nothing in his body language.
Nothing—except the timing.
And then, he tilted his head slightly. Not mockingly. Just… inquisitive.
"But," he asked, "why did you ask, Professor? Is sothing the matter?"
It was clean.
Too clean.
As if he hadn't noticed the spike. As if he hadn't felt the weight of Leonard's intent focused like a razor's edge in the center of the air.
As if he hadn't felt anything.
And that was the part that made her fingers curl again.
Eleanor's gaze didn't waver. Her voice, when it ca again, was quieter—but only in tone. Not in weight.
"I'm asking," she said, "because I sensed a flare."
She took a step forward. Not threatening. Not aggressive. Just closing the space between them with the authority of soone who no longer intended to play around the edges.
"A strange energy. Not elental. Not psionic. Not anything I've catalogued in the usual spectrums. Dense. Refined. Layered."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"And it was incredibly strong."
That made Astron blink. Just once. A calculated reaction? Possibly. But Eleanor was watching for far more than his face now.
"I ca because I felt it," she continued. "The first flare drew my attention. That was standard mana pressure—structured, clean, high-ranked. But the second one? That was sothing else."
She paused just long enough for silence to press in.
"And it felt like it was directed at you."
Astron didn't speak. But that stillness of his… it was no longer flat. No longer backgrounded calm. There was pressure behind it now. Subtle. Coiled. Like a spring not yet released.
Eleanor exhaled slowly and extended her hand—not toward him, but slightly upward, palm open.
She closed her eyes.
And then—channeled.
Not fully. Not casting. But tracing. Matching the impression of Leonard's aura from earlier. The sharp, precise intent that had twisted space like a thread pulled taut. She rebuilt it as best she could from mory—constructing not the spell itself, but the emotional tone behind it. The pressure. The logic of the will that had been ready to strike.
It took her a few seconds.
And then she felt it.
A tremor.
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