Inez sprints up the spiral stairs of the Skywrite Terrace, taking two steps at a time, her braided pigtails bouncing and her three labeled vials clinking at her belt. She has practiced the Opening Skywrite forty-one times. She has memorized every loop of every letter. Today, first-years write their names across the clouds, and the cleanest signature earns a place in the First Circle.

She reaches the top, breathless. The terrace floats above a sea of sunset-pink clouds, and Lumenward Academy rises behind her—towers stitched together with bridges of light, the whole school humming like something alive.

"You're going to love this," says a voice.

Dexter Quill leans against the railing, copper goggles on his forehead, the white lightning-bolt streak in his hair catching the light. He pats a contraption of brass tubes and rubber bands. "Ink-launcher. Writes your name in half the time."

"Dexter, the instructions say quill and focus. Not... catapult."

"Instructions are just suggestions with good handwriting."

Nearby, Ebony Morrow stands very still, silver headphones around her neck, her high puff of coils wrapped in violet ribbon. She's frowning at the sky.

"Do you hear that?" she asks quietly. "The boundary ward. It's humming flat. Like a song missing a note."

A fourth student joins their line—a boy with careful eyes who introduces himself only as Abel. When he lifts his quill, Inez notices something odd: the air around his hand shimmers gold, old and deep, like light through honey.

The bell rings. Inez raises her quill and draws the first perfect loop of the I—

And Dexter fires his launcher.

The ink-blast rockets sideways, tangles with Inez's spell, snags Ebony's listening-hum, and collides with the golden shimmer around Abel's hand.