Five months had thinned into a taut wire of routine and practice. The girls had become sharper, quicker, and more certain in their moves, but the council’s praise had also grown colder with each passing month. What had once felt like daring play now carried the weight of design — and tonight the design showed its teeth.

  They were home after supper when both devices hummed at once, the sound small and clinical in the quiet kitchen. Sabrina glanced down first, then passed the screen to Luna. The message pulsed in a blunt, official font:

  NOTICE: In three days’ time, all listed young operatives will gather.

  OBJECTIVE: Bring chaos. Destruction, theft permitted. Lethal force allowed where necessary.

  TARGET: Weaken the next generation of heroes.

  REWARD: Significant advancement and council commendation.

  CONSEQUENCE: Refusal will be recorded and punished.

  Sabrina read the line a second time, then a third. Luna’s face drained of color as the word sat on the screen like ice.

  “K—killing?” Luna’s voice came out a whisper first, then a tremor. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, eyes shining. “But we… we didn’t train for that. Why them?” Tears collected at the corners of her eyes and then fell, one, two, warm tracks down her cheeks.

  Sabrina moved instantly, folding around Luna with a quick, fierce protectiveness. She brushed the wet streaks away with the same hand that had once tied her sister’s shoelaces. “No,” Sabrina said, voice steady but low. “No. Whoever sent this—this doesn’t mean we have to do that. We can make it look like chaos without taking life. We’ll do destruction and stealing if we must, but we will not kill. Ever.”

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  Luna hiccupped, clinging to that promise like a lifeline. “Promise?” she whispered.

  “Promise,” Sabrina answered, holding her sister’s eyes. The word was a vow and a rebellion all at once.

  Denis had been in the next room, pretending to fix a lamp but really listening. The thin sound of Luna’s breath, the break in Sabrina’s voice — it cut him like weather. He let the lamp go unfastened and stepped closer to the doorway, though he stayed just out of sight. He watched his daughters where the lamplight pooled on the kitchen floor, small and human and suddenly more fragile than any assignment or device.

  Tears gathered in Denis’s eyes too, but they were not only sadness. There was a hot, fierce relief mixed with pride. They are villains by decree, but not by heart, he thought. My teaching—those small seeds of kindness—still grow. He felt the ache of it: their hands had learned how to hurt a world that demanded obedience, yet their hearts recoiled at the idea of killing another person.

  He swallowed and breathed out a steadying sigh. For now, he would keep his knowledge of the message — and of their powers — to himself. Exposing it would only push them deeper into the machine that had marked them. He had watched enough to know that confrontation with the System rarely freed anyone.

  Instead, Denis let the quiet of the evening settle. When Sabrina and Luna folded themselves into the couch, whispering plans that carefully avoided any path that would take a life, Denis closed the door behind him and placed a hand flat on the wood, feeling the pulse of normalcy on the other side.

  He spoke to himself in a voice too small for the room: “Good. You’re still my girls.” The words were a benediction and a warning. There would be time to plan, to protect, to try and bend what the System demanded into something less monstrous. There would be battle lines to cross in three days’ time — but he would not let them walk into that without a fight.

  Outside, the city breathed on. Within the house, a father cradled a secret and two sisters clung to a promise. The council had issued its call to chaos; a different kind of response was already taking shape, one built from love and stubborn refusal.