*Aria's POV**

Convincing Hayes that I needed to research Academy security incidents for a "historical analysis project" was easier than expected. Apparently, academic curiosity about institutional procedures was the kind of thing supervisors approved of.

What he didn't know was that my real education was happening in the spaces between official research.

"The east archives contain incident reports dating back fifty years," Mrs. Corvina explained as she led Hayes and me through a section of ...