Chapter 171| The Greenhouse

Chapter 171: Chapter 171| The Greenhouse

Wednesday went by in a blur of lectures Zane didn’t hear.

Maren caught him at the training grounds staring at the fence for a full minute, and she had to say his name twice. Dex asked if he wanted to skip dinner and trade snacks, and Zane said yes without knowing what he’d agreed to. At 4:30 PM his communicator buzzed with a single line.

Nyx: Three days buddy don’t slack.

He didn’t answer. She hadn’t asked a question.

_ _

At 8:52 PM on Thursday, he stood at the edge of the practical complex with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at a glass box in the dark.

The old greenhouse sat behind the main hall, half buried in overgrown hedges. Moonlight caught the cracked panes and turned them silver. Half the roof had caved in years ago, and the rest hung on rusted frames. A padlock dangled from the door, open.

’Somewhere on that roof across the way,’ he thought, ’Sera is lying flat in the cold with her chin on her arms.’

He didn’t look up. She’d told him not to.

He crossed the grass and pushed the door open.

The air inside was damp and sour, thick with the smell of rot and old soil. Long benches ran down both sides, crowded with dead plants in cracked pots. Moonlight came through the broken roof in pale stripes. In the middle of the aisle, on an upturned crate, a man sat with his hands folded between his knees.

Grey jacket. No badge. Mid-forties, close-cropped hair, a face so plain it slid out of memory the second you looked away.

"Mr. Calloway," the man said, his voice quiet and perfectly even. "Thank you for coming."

"You said to come alone," Zane said, stopping ten feet away.

"I did. And you did." The man’s mouth lifted slightly. "That’s already more than I expected."

"Who are you?"

"Call me Mr. Hollis." He said it like a man handing over a business card he knew was fake. "I work for a division you’ve heard about and haven’t met. That’s all you need for now."

"The field division," Zane said, keeping his tone flat.

"If you like," Hollis said, with a small shrug.

Zane stayed where he was. He kept his shoulders loose and his weight on the balls of his feet. He didn’t reach for any slot. He didn’t have to. He could feel all three of them waiting like dogs at his heels.

"What do you want?" Zane asked.

"To talk. Nothing else." Hollis lifted both hands from his knees, palms open, and set them on his thighs. "I saw your duel. I’ve also seen the footage, all three angles. I’d like to be honest with you about what we noticed."

"Go ahead."

"Your registered rank doesn’t match your output." Hollis said it gently, like a doctor reading a chart. "During the assessment, the readings showed one signature. During the duel, there were two, at least. And in the last ten seconds, there was a third thing."

Zane’s stomach clenched. He kept his face still.

"A ripple," Hollis went on, folding his hands again. "It bent a very large compression away from your chest. No listed Sigil on record does that. Nothing you’ve declared comes close."

"I got lucky," Zane said.

『 System Note: That is the host’s second favourite phrase. 』

’Shush, system,’ Zane thought.

"Lucky." Hollis smiled, thin and tired. "I’m not offended. I’d say it too, if I were you."

Zane didn’t answer.

"Here’s what I think," Hollis continued. "I think you have an unregistered secondary ability. A latent one, probably. It woke up under stress. It’s weak, it’s unstable, and you don’t fully understand it yet." He tilted his head. "Am I close?"

’He’s guessing,’ Zane thought. ’He’s guessing, and he’s wrong, and he doesn’t know it.’

The system stayed silent. He felt its attention like a hand held over his mouth.

"Maybe,maybe not," Zane said slowly.

"I thought so." Hollis nodded, pleased. "That’s good. That’s exactly what we see in the rare cases."

"The rare cases?"

"People like you. Out of the usual curve." He said it with the calm of someone who’d said it a hundred times. "Not many. Perhaps one every few years. Most of them never learn what they are. They burn out, or they get flagged by the wrong people, or they’re simply lost in the noise."

"And you find them."

"We try."

The roof creaked in the wind. Somewhere in the glass above, a loose pane tapped against its frame.

"I’m here to offer you something," Hollis said. "A place in a training programme. Supervised, small, and run outside the academy’s official track. Instructors who know what they’re looking at. No exams, no rankings, no public matches. Just development, at your pace, under protection."

"Protection from who?"

"From people who’d use you." Hollis’s eyes flicked once toward the roof, then back. "From people who’d take a young man with an unusual ability and turn him into a weapon, or a specimen. It happens. Quietly, and more often than you’d like."

"And you wouldn’t."

"We’d be careful with you." He smiled again, a little too wide. "That’s the difference."

Zane studied him. The even breathing, the folded hands, the flat unbothered calm that Sera had read from a rooftop.

’Careful,’ he thought. ’Like a man who keeps a bird in a box.’

"What happens if I say no?" Zane asked.

Hollis didn’t hesitate.

"Then you stay where you are," he said. "You keep training, you keep sitting in lectures, and we keep watching. Quietly. Nothing changes." He paused. "People who are watched for a long time tend to make the choice for us. Usually they don’t enjoy how it ends."

The words sat in the air between them like a cold stone.

"That sounds like a threat," Zane said.

"It’s a weather forecast." Hollis stood, unhurried, and brushed dust off his knees. "You have a week. Think it over. Talk to whoever you trust."

He reached into his jacket and held out a plain white card. No logo, no name, just a ten-digit number printed in small black type.

Zane didn’t take it.

"I’ll leave it here," Hollis said, and set it on the crate. "Good night, Mr. Calloway."

He walked past without touching him. The door creaked, closed, and his footsteps faded across the gravel until the night swallowed them.

Zane stood alone in the greenhouse for a long time.

Then he picked up the card, turned it over twice, and slid it into his pocket.

_ _

Sera found him at the edge of the hedge. She came out of the dark with her hood up and her arms wrapped around herself, shivering a little.

"I lost him at the lane," Sera said, falling into step beside him. "He didn’t run. He didn’t turn his head once. He just walked."

"What did you read?"

"Calm. All the way through. Even when he told you what happens if you say no." She glanced at him, and her voice dropped. "That’s the part that scared me. His heat never moved."

Zane didn’t say anything. They walked in silence along the wall, past the sleeping windows of the practical complex.

’A week to answer Hollis,’ he thought. ’And two days before Nyx stops being patient.’ He frowned at the dark path ahead. ’I wonder what Nyx being impatient even looks like.’

『 System Note: The host performed adequately. 』

’Adequately.’

『 The host revealed nothing. The system considers that adequate. 』

Sera bumped her shoulder against his arm, light and brief.

I’ve decided to tell Instructor Vael tomorrow morning," Zane said, keeping his eyes on the path.

"Good," Sera said, glancing at him sideways.

"I said I’ve decided."

"I heard." Her mouth twitched. "I’m just glad you remembered."

The system surfaced.

『 Sera Dunne — Familiarity +3% 』

『 Current: 41% — Acquaintance tier 』

’Sera, the cute olive-eyed prodigy, already at 41%,’ he thought. ’I didn’t notice how far I’d come, just a sigiless kid not so far back.’

He glanced at her. She was in her hoodie and a short skirt, and his eyes dropped to her slick thighs before he could stop them. Sera glanced back, and he threw his eyes away fast, staring hard at the lamps.

Still sexy and hospitable as ever,’ he thought. ’What more could a man ask for?’

"Did you say something?" Sera asked, tilting her head.

"Nah," Zane said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It must have been the wind."

He almost smiled. Above them, the lamps along the path flickered on one by one, and he followed their light all the way back to the dorms.