Ellara“Cale. It drives me crazy when you do that.”He didn’t answer me.We were sitting out in the quad several days after everything with the Ghost, and whatever had happened up north. Crazy days. The Academy had mostly gone back to pretending things were normal, but the students hadn’t. You couldn’t walk ten steps without hearing the word Ghost whispered like it was some kind of spell.People said they’d seen him downtown, leaping between buildings and being chased by agents in floating vehicles. Some swore there were maps circulating, made by someone who had witnessed the chase, tracing his routes like he was a storm you could chart if you tried hard enough.Rade wouldn’t shut up about it.He was still talking about paths and sightlines and how someone had tracked the Ghost across three districts before losing him near the old aqueducts. He had diagrams because, of course, he had diagrams.I turned to look at my brother.Cale was sitting cross-legged on the stone, hands resting loosely on his knees. His eyes were closed. The breeze moved through his blue-black hair, lifting it just enough that it caught the light. His breathing was slow, deliberate in a way that made the rest of the quad feel chaotic by comparison.At first, I thought he was just ignoring us.Then I noticed the shimmer.Soft and warm, with a faint shift along his skin, like light passing through very clear water. His mana wasn’t expanding outward the way most people’s did when they focused. It was moving inward, circulating in a smooth, continuous loop. It was strange that I could see it so clearly.“Cale,” I said again. “You’re not even listening.”His mouth curved slightly on one side.“I’m listening to every word,” he said, eyes still closed. “You’re complaining about Rade talking about the Ghost. If you don’t want him to talk about the Ghost, then you need to tell him to stop.” (...)