Chapter 14

Two weeks passed. November settled over Mudwick with gray skies and the smell of dead leaves.

The trees had gone bare, their branches scratching at the windows when the wind picked up. The world outside the buildings felt like it was closing down, getting smaller, preparing for something cold and long.

Inside, though, something was growing. Not my ability to read places, which remained stubbornly absent. Something else.

Practice didn't get much better in the technical sense. Marcus showed up, ran his own plays, and left. The rest of us developed workarounds. Sasha created positioning strategies that didn't rely on my field-reading. Dao learned to anticipate where Marcus would go and stay out of his way. Thaddeus guarded our flag with quiet determination, drawing just enough from nearby pools to hold his ground.

But the hours around practice started to change. We studied together in the library most evenings. Sasha quizzed us on Threshold Theory while Dao complained about the reading load and Thaddeus offered help that was occasionally useful and occasionally so steeped in old-family assumptions that Sasha had to correct him. "Not everyone had a personal tutor in portal mechanics, Thaddeus." "I know, I know. I'm just saying if you think of the transit equations as a language..." "Please stop saying 'just' before explanations that assume a decade of privileged background knowledge."

There were meals where the conversation had nothing to do with magic. Dao's ongoing campaign to rank every cafeteria item by survivability. Thaddeus describing his mother's increasingly creative attempts to monitor his wellbeing from three states away. Sasha's quiet revelation that she'd never seen snow before coming to Mudwick, which led to Dao promising to throw the first snowball of the season at her face, which led to a negotiation about the ethics of preemptive snowball violence that somehow lasted an entire dinner.

Small things. The kind of things that turn five people who were assigned to each other into five people who choose to sit together.

Marcus ate with us occasionally now. Not every meal. Not reliably. But sometimes he'd appear with his tray and sit at the end of the table and eat in silence while the rest of us talked. He never added to the conversation. Never stayed for dessert. But he was there. Present in a way that felt like progress, even if he wouldn't have called it that.

Whatever was happening with his grandmother was getting worse. I could feel the weight increasing every time we were near each other. A heaviness in his emotional register that hadn't been there the first week, growing denser, like silt accumulating at the bottom of a river.

Then one night, Coach Vasquez announced the first practice matches.

"First-year fall matches," he said at dinner. "No stakes except pride. Consider it a diagnostic." He consulted his clipboard. "There'll be spring matches too, once you've had more time to develop. These are just to see where everyone stands."

We drew Priya's squad. The best first-year team.

"We're going to get destroyed," Dao said.

"Probably," Sasha agreed. She didn't seem bothered by the prospect. "But we'll learn something."

Marcus wasn't at dinner. He'd been eating alone more often lately, or not eating in the dining hall at all.

"Let's just focus on what we can control," I said. "Tomorrow, we play our best. Whatever happens, happens."

"That's very zen of you."

"I'm trying something new."

The match started at three the next day.

Both teams gathered at the Drift field. The saturation had been refreshed overnight, and the air shimmered with it. Pools bloomed across the terrain like heat mirages, some obvious and bright, others subtle ripples I could barely perceive. They shifted as I watched. A spot near midfield fading while another brightened near the left boundary.

Our flag snapped in the wind at our end. Theirs at the opposite end. Simple rules. Grab theirs, get it back to our side. Whoever had the most captures when time ran out would win.

Priya's team looked confident. They moved in sync even just walking to their starting positions. Two fast runners flanking wide, a guard settling near their flag, Priya herself scanning the field with the kind of focus that made my stomach drop. When her attention moved across the terrain, I could almost see what she was seeing. The pools lighting up for her like markers on a map.

We looked like what we were. A collection of people who'd been thrown together and told to make it work.

Coach Vasquez explained the rules, though everyone already knew them. Drawing from pools was allowed. Pushing opponents to freeze them was allowed. No drawing from teammates, no physical contact beyond incidental collisions.

"Capture the flag. Simple as that." He looked between the two teams. "Ready positions."

The whistle blew.

Priya moved immediately, her voice cutting clear across the field. "Pool at seven! Runners go wide, draw and push through!"

Her team flowed like water. Both runners sprinted toward the boundaries, and I watched them hit pools I hadn't seen coming. The shimmer flowed into them, absorbed through their hands and arms, and they lit up. Glowing faintly with stored power as they curved toward our flag.

"Dao, left side!" Sasha called. "Thaddeus, hold position!"

Dao took off to intercept, but their runner was already charged. She extended her hand and the air rippled between them, a visible wave that hit Dao in the chest. He froze mid-stride, locked in place, his momentum dead. Two seconds. Three. By the time he could move again, she was past him.

Their other runner was coming from the right. Marcus moved to intercept without being asked, which was something, but he was running into a dead zone. No power to draw from. When he tried to push, nothing happened. Their runner blew past him.

"Where are the pools?" Sasha shouted at me.

"I don't... I can barely..."

"Then watch Priya! Where's she sending them?"

I tried to focus on Priya across the field. Felt her attention sweep the terrain, felt her spot something near our flag.

"They're converging! Both of them, coming to our flag from..."

Too late. Their faster runner grabbed the flag, pulled it free, started sprinting back. Thaddeus got a push off but she'd drawn deep from a pool right next to our flag. Her block held. She kept running.

The whistle blew.

"Point," Vasquez called. "Reset."

They scored once more in the next ten minutes. Same pattern. Priya read the field, called her plays, and her team executed while we scrambled to keep up. I tried to track her, tried to feel where her attention was going, but by the time I processed it and relayed it to the team, they'd already moved.

Marcus was playing his own game, as usual. He'd gotten close to their flag once, drawn deep from a rich pool near their boundary, but their guard had been waiting. Hit him with a push that froze him long enough for the runners to get back on defense.

When Coach Vasquez called for a break at the halfway point, we were down two to nothing.

"This is pointless," Marcus said. He was barely winded, which felt like an insult. "We're down two and we can't see the field."

"Shut up," Dao snapped.

"He's not wrong." I sat down on the grass and put my head in my hands. "I can't see what she sees. Every call I make is a guess, and by the time I make it, they've already moved."

"Then stop guessing." Sasha crouched down next to me. Her eyes were sharp, that analytical mind working behind them. I could feel her frustration, her determination, the absolute refusal to accept that we were beaten. "You've been trying to do what Priya does. Read the field, find the pools, call the plays. But that's not your ability."

"I know that."

"So use your actual ability." She grabbed my shoulder, and I got a flash of everything she was feeling. The urgency. The certainty that there was an answer if we could just see it differently. "Don't read the field. Read her."

"I've been trying to..."

"No. You've been trying to translate what she sees into something useful. Stop translating. Just read." She pointed across the field at Priya, who was talking strategy with her team. "Feel what she's going to do before she does it. Not where the pools are. What she's about to call. Her decisions, not the field."

I stared at Sasha. Then at Priya. Then back at Sasha.

"That's not how Drift works."

"Neither is having a caller who can't see the field. We're already breaking the rules just by existing. Might as well break them usefully."

Thaddeus looked uncertain. "Can that work?"

"I don't know. But what we're doing now isn't working." Sasha looked at me. "You can feel people's intentions, right? What they're about to do before they do it?"

"Sometimes. If I focus."

"Then focus on her. Only her. Tell us what she's about to do."

It was insane. It went against everything about how Drift was played. But we were losing anyway.

"Okay," I said. "Let's try it."

Second half.

Priya's team took their positions with the easy confidence of people who knew they'd already won. Two more captures and the match was effectively over. Just running out the clock on a team that couldn't see.

I walked to my position and did something I hadn't done all game. I stopped trying to see the pools. Instead, I focused everything on Priya. Not her body. Not her position. Her mind. The particular shape of her attention as it moved across the field.

The whistle blew.

Priya's eyes swept left. I felt her attention lock onto something, a pool blooming bright in her perception. The decision formed in her mind half a second before she opened her mouth.

"Right!" I called to my team. "Runners going right, there's a pool at ten o'clock!"

Dao adjusted instantly. Sasha adjusted. Even Marcus glanced at me with surprise.

Priya's team moved to her left. We were already there.

Dao met their runner at the pool. She'd expected to draw unopposed, charge up, blow past him. Instead he was waiting. They collided in a chaos of competing draws, both trying to pull from the same shimmer, and neither getting enough to push effectively.

"Block coming at two!" I called. I'd felt Priya's attention flicker there, felt her guard getting ready to move on Thaddeus. "Thaddeus, brace!"

Thaddeus braced. When their guard came at him, pushing with everything she had, the air rippled between them but he held his ground.

Priya was looking at me now. Really looking. Trying to figure out what had changed.

I felt her decide to test something. Felt her attention move to a pool near the right boundary. A feint she was about to call to see if I'd follow.

"Feint left," I said. "She's testing us. Real play is coming center."

Sasha held our position. Priya's team went left, realized we weren't biting, and had to abort.

"How are you doing that?" Dao asked, breathing hard.

"I'm reading her. Not the field. Her."

"That's insane."

"Yeah."

But it was working.

Marcus started actually listening. When I called that their runner was about to cut back toward our flag, he was there to intercept. When I warned about an incoming push, he drew from a pool nearby and blocked it. Something was shifting in him. The armor was still there, but underneath it, something was waking up. The unfamiliar sensation of being part of something instead of apart from it.

Our first capture came six minutes into the second half. I felt Priya commit her guard to an offensive push and called it. Dao sprinted through the gap before they could recover. He grabbed their flag and ran like something was chasing him, which it was. Made it back to our side by two steps. The whistle blew. Two to one.

The second capture came three minutes later. Priya tried a feint I'd already called. Sasha held position, Thaddeus intercepted the real attack, and Marcus took an open lane to their flag that Priya didn't see coming because she was too busy trying to figure out how I kept reading her. Two to two.

Priya's frustration was radiating across the field now. She wasn't used to this. Wasn't used to being matched by a squad that had no business being in this game.

And then something strange happened.

I was deep in Priya's perception, feeling her attention sweep toward a pool near midfield, when I saw it. Not through her. Directly. Just for a heartbeat, the shimmer at midfield wasn't something I was sensing secondhand from Priya's awareness. It was there. Visible in my own perception. Bright and pulsing with stored energy.

Then it was gone. Back to the fog I'd been living in since I arrived.

I blinked. Must have been adrenaline. Weird focus. The intensity of reading Priya so deeply that her perceptions bled into mine. Nothing important.

With two minutes left, I felt something shift in Priya. She made a decision. I felt it form before she committed. An all-out assault on our flag. Both runners, her guard, everyone except Priya herself converging on Thaddeus. Overwhelm our defense. End it. Force a third capture to take the lead and run out the clock.

"They're coming," I said. "Everything they have. All of them on our flag."

"What do we do?" Sasha asked.

I looked across the field at Priya's flag. Unguarded. She was betting everything on finishing us right now.

"Thaddeus, hold as long as you can. Dao, Sasha, help him." I turned to Marcus. "You're fast. You're the best pusher we have. Can you get to their flag before they get to ours?"

He stared at me. The question hung in the air between us.

This was the moment. Trust him or don't. Believe he'd show up when it mattered or play it safe and lose anyway.

I could feel his hesitation. The part of him that wanted to run his own play, do his own thing, stay separate and protected. And underneath that, something tired of being alone.

"Their whole team is about to commit," I said. "Priya's not moving. She's staying back to call. But she can't guard and call at the same time. If you can get past her..."

"I can get past her."

"Then go. Now. Before they commit."

He went.

Marcus sprinted toward the opposite end of the field. Not the careful tactical approach he'd been using all game. A dead run, everything he had, heading for the largest pool between him and their flag.

Priya saw him. I felt her attention snap to him, felt the decision tree branch in her mind. Call off the assault? No, they were too committed. Intercept him herself? She wasn't fast enough.

She shouted a warning but it was too late. Her team had already begun their attack.

They hit us like a wave. Both runners drawing deep, glowing bright with stolen power, pushing at Thaddeus from two angles at once. The air screamed with released force. Thaddeus staggered but didn't fall. Dao threw himself into the gap, taking a freeze meant for Thaddeus, his body locking up mid-motion.

Sasha intercepted their guard. Both of them drawing from the same pool, fighting for enough power to push.

And Marcus ran.

He hit the pool at midfield and didn't slow down. The shimmer flowed into him as he passed through it, faster than I'd ever seen anyone draw, like he was drinking it in through his skin. He lit up. Not the faint glow of a normal draw. Bright. Blazing. Every bit of talent he'd been hiding behind his armor suddenly on display.

Priya moved to intercept. She was the last line of defense, the only thing between Marcus and their flag. She pushed. The air rippled between them, a wave of force that should have frozen him in his tracks.

Marcus pushed back.

The collision was visible. Two waves of force meeting in the air, the shimmer distorting, the sound like fabric tearing. Priya's push was good. Marcus's was better. All that power he'd drawn, all that talent he'd been coasting on, finally unleashed.

Her push shattered. She staggered backward. And Marcus blew past her.

He grabbed their flag.

Behind me, Thaddeus finally went down. Their runners had broken through. One of them was sprinting toward our flag, and there was no one left to stop her.

But Marcus was already running. Flag in hand. Crossing the midfield line. Burning through whatever power he had left to stay ahead of the pursuit.

Their runner grabbed our flag. Started sprinting back.

It was a race now. Two people running in opposite directions.

Marcus hit another pool without breaking stride. Drew everything it had. His legs were a blur.

Their runner was fast. Charged up. Gaining ground on her own goal line.

I couldn't breathe.

Marcus crossed first.

The whistle blew.

"Final capture, Lawrence squad. Three to two."

For a second nobody moved. Then Thaddeus, still on the ground where he'd fallen, looked up like he didn't trust his own ears.

"We won?" He looked dazed. "We actually won?"

"Apparently," Marcus said. He was breathing hard, still holding their flag, and his expression was something I'd never seen from him before. He looked alive.

After the match, Priya found me.

"That was different," she said. "Second half. You weren't reading the field."

"No."

"You were reading me." Not a question. She'd figured it out.

"Yeah."

She considered this. "That shouldn't work."

"And yet."

"I don't know if I should be impressed or offended." But she was smiling slightly. "Good match. Next time I'll know to shield."

"Can you do that?"

"I have no idea. Guess we'll find out." She walked away to join her team.

The rest of my squad gathered near the sideline. Dao clapped me on the shoulder. I braced for the flood, but it was just surface stuff. Excitement and relief. The particular joy of winning when you expected to lose.

"That was insane," he said. "Reading the reader. Who does that?"

"Apparently I do."

"It was unorthodox," Sasha said, but she was smiling too. "Effective, though. We should analyze how it worked. See if we can refine the technique."

Thaddeus was sitting on the grass with his face tilted toward the sky. I thought he might cry but he just sat there, breathing, letting it sink in. "We won. We actually won."

"Don't get too excited. It was one match."

"It was our first match. And we won it." He said it like he needed to hear it twice. Dao didn't make fun of him for it. Nobody did.

Marcus hung back from the celebration. When I caught his eye, his expression was complicated. Not friendly, exactly. But not hostile either. Something cracked open that he hadn't decided what to do with yet.

"That call at the end," he said. "Sending me for their flag. That was a risk."

"Yeah."

"Could have backfired. If I'd been slower, they'd have captured first."

"But you weren't slower."

He was quiet for a moment. Something was moving beneath the surface. The armor he wore was cracked, just a little, and I could feel what was underneath. Not just grief anymore. Something newer and more fragile.

"No," he said finally. "I wasn't."

He started to turn away. Then stopped. Looked at Sasha.

"Your positioning in the second half," he said. "The way you shifted when I moved. You saw what I was going to do before I did it."

Sasha blinked. Whatever she'd been expecting from Marcus, it wasn't this. "I was just playing the angles."

"No. You were reading me. Not like he does." He nodded toward me. "Different. But reading."

He walked away before she could respond. Sasha stood there for a moment with an expression I'd never seen on her. She approached everything like a system to be analyzed. This had caught her somewhere the analysis didn't reach.

"He noticed," she said quietly, like she was processing the fact of it out loud.

"Yeah," I said. "He did."

She shook it off. Put the analytical face back on. "We should debrief. Map the second-half strategy. Figure out what worked and why."

But her eyes followed Marcus as he walked toward the buildings, and I caught the edge of something she was feeling. Not admiration exactly. Surprise. The particular surprise of being seen by someone you'd assumed wasn't looking.

That night, the dining hall felt different.

People looked at us as we walked in. Not with the pity or dismissal we'd gotten before. With curiosity. With something that might have been respect.

Word had traveled. The squad with the blind caller had beaten one of the best first-year teams. Nobody knew exactly how, but they knew it had happened.

"Don't let it go to your heads," Sasha warned.

"Let me enjoy this for five minutes," Dao said. "Then you can go back to keeping us humble."

I ate my dinner and listened to them argue about strategy for the next match. Marcus sat with us, which was new. He didn't say much, but he was there. Present. Part of the group in a way he hadn't been before. When Dao said something about the final run, Marcus almost smiled. Almost.

Thaddeus had pulled a small piece of polished wood from his pocket and was rubbing it between his fingers the way he did when he was thinking. His token. I'd seen him reach for it before but this was the first time I'd noticed him holding it openly. The wood glowed faintly in the dining hall light, warm and steady, and something about the way he held it made the air around him feel calmer.

"What is that?" I asked.

"My grandmother gave it to me." He held it up. The wood was dark, polished smooth by years of handling. "From a tree near our family's old property in West Virginia. She anchored it when I was born. Said it would keep me steady when things got loud."

"Does it work?"

"It works." He slipped it back into his pocket. "Better than anything else I've tried."

Everyone at Mudwick seemed to carry something. A stone, a bookmark, a piece of jewelry charged with memory. Everyone except me. I hadn't been here long enough to anchor anything, hadn't found an object that felt right. Sometimes I wondered if that left me more exposed than I realized.

Back in my room, I pulled out my phone. Shelby had been texting. Three days' worth of messages I hadn't answered. A link to some video with the comment this guy looks exactly like mr. peterson if mr. peterson had a mullet and a banjo. Then yesterday: hello?? did you die?? And this morning: okay seriously starting to worry. even a thumbs up would help.

The urge to tell someone about today was overwhelming. To share this with someone who'd understand how much it meant.

My thumb hovered over her name. She'd be excited for me. She'd demand details. She'd make it feel real in a way that even the dining hall celebration hadn't quite managed.

But what would I say? Won a game today. Can't explain the rules. Can't explain how I won. Can't explain anything about my life anymore.

I started typing. Hey. Good day today. Wish I could tell you about it.

Stared at the words. They weren't enough. They weren't anything.

I deleted them.

Tried again. not dead. just crazy busy. sorry for being the worst.

Her response came fast. you ARE the worst. but also glad you're alive. call me sometime? actual voice call? i miss your face.

soon, I wrote back.

I put the phone down and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The traces of former students pressed gently against my awareness, their old anxieties familiar now. Almost comfortable.

Tomorrow there would be more classes I'd struggle with. More techniques I couldn't learn the normal way. More moments of feeling like I didn't belong in a world built for people who weren't like me.

But tonight, I'd won.

Tonight, I'd proven that different wasn't the same as broken.

And across the dining hall, a kid who carried his grief like a stone in his chest had run faster than anyone on the field, because for thirty seconds he'd believed he was part of something worth running for.

It was enough. For now, it was enough.