The morning in the Ash-Tree Orphanage dining hall always sounded like a symphony of clattering spoons and muffled yawns. The air was thick with the scent of oat porridge and the lingering, sweet dampness of the ancient forest outside.

  Ren sat at the end of the long oak table, his golden eyes darting from plate to plate. He wasn't looking for extra food—though he wouldn't say no to it—he was watching the "Pre-Echoes." He watched the way a younger boy leaned too far to the left, predicting exactly three seconds before the child’s milk would tip over.

  "Don't even think about it, Ren," Sister Martha murmured from the head of the table. She didn't look up from her tea, but the silver thimble on her finger caught a stray beam of light, humming softly. "If you catch that cup before it falls, the boy will never learn about gravity. And gravity is the only thing keeping this town from floating away."

  Ren sighed, retracting his hand just as the milk spilled. "Life is so much more aesthetic when things don't break, Sister. I'm just trying to curate the morning."

  Beside him, Kael was absentmindedly cooling his porridge by holding the bowl between his palms. A thin frost began to lace the wood of the table. "You curate too much," Kael grunted, his voice like cracking ice. "Let the milk fall. It’s honest."

  "Honesty is messy," Ren countered, flicking a spoonful of porridge toward Kael’s nose. Before it could hit, the oat-clump froze solid in mid-air and dropped like a pebble.

  Elara, sitting across from them, tilted her head. She hadn't touched her food. Her fingers were tracing the grain of the table, her blind eyes fixed on the door. "The hum is closer," she whispered, her voice cutting through the chatter of the thirty other children. "The gears are grinding against the moss. It’s... heavy."

  Stolen story; please report.

  Just then, the heavy front doors of the orphanage swung open with a bang that made the iron hinges scream.

  A man stepped in, dripping wet despite the light mist outside. This was Old Silas, the orphanage’s gardener, repairman, and unofficial purveyor of town gossip. Silas was a man who looked like he was made of twisted briars and stubborn leather.

  "Sister!" Silas barked, his eyes wide as he wiped his muddy boots. "The Gate. The North Gate. You need to tell the children to stay in the courtyard today."

  Sister Martha stood up, her calm demeanor sharpening into something more guarded. "What is it, Silas? The Hundred Kingdoms aren't squabbling again, are they?"

  "Worse," Silas spat, his voice dropping to a low, fearful rasp. "The Federation. A black carriage—no horses, just that thumping metal heart. They’ve got a woman in slate-gray leadin' 'em. An Inquisitor."

  The dining room went silent. The younger children didn't know what a Federation Inquisitor was, but they knew the tone of Silas’s voice. It was the tone people used for wolves and forest fires.

  Ren felt a spark of electricity dance along his spine. He looked at Elara, whose face had gone pale, and then at Kael, whose hands were now frosted white to the wrists.

  "They’re headin' for the silversmith's shop," Silas continued. "They say he was found 'static-burnt.' The Town Guard is shakin' in their boots. They don't want the Bridge-burners here any more than we do."

  Ren pushed his chair back, the wooden legs screeching against the floor—a sound that, to him, sounded exactly like a challenge.

  "Static-burnt," Ren whispered, a sharp, ironic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Someone finally overloaded the sponge. I told you, Barnaby," he muttered to the invisible gargoyle in his mind, "the punchline is here."

  He looked at Kael and Elara. "Well? Are we going to sit here and wait for the Slate-and-Gold to file us in a ledger, or are we going to see why a silversmith decided to turn into a lightning rod?"

  Sister Martha’s eyes locked onto Ren’s. "Ren, stay put."

  "Of course, Sister," Ren said, already calculating the exact trajectory from the dining room window to the oak branch outside. "I’ll stay exactly as put as the wind."

  Before she could reach for him, Ren was a blur of motion, heading for the one exit Silas hadn't blocked. The game wasn't just in the streets anymore; the Federation had brought the "Bridge" to Oakhaven, and Ren couldn't wait to see if it would creak under his weight.