By the time Celeste and Pitch returned to the Egg Tree, the base had become something between a refuge and a battlefield after the battle had already passed.
Survivors moved through the roots and lower halls in exhausted clusters. Some carried blankets. Some carried boxes. Some carried nothing at all, staring blankly ahead as if their bodies had escaped before their minds had caught up.
The Egg Tree glowed around them, its luminous bark knitting itself together in slow veins of pale green and gold. Broken branches had been splinted with metal supports. Cracked stone had been dragged aside. Torn canvas shelters were being patched. Someone had started sweeping glass-sugar from the entrance path, though the broom kept sticking to patches of syrup and making the job twice as miserable as it needed to be.
There was gratitude everywhere.
And grief.
People hugged those who had returned. Others stood silently beside empty spaces where someone should have been. A woman sat beneath one of the roots, clutching a scorched scarf to her chest, rocking back and forth without sound.
Celeste slowed.
The warmth from the Royal Gardens vanished from her chest like a candle blown out.
Pitch noticed but said nothing.
Across the courtyard, Bracer stood with Arch and Pliskin near a half-collapsed barricade. Arch looked pale and rattled, his ginger tabby fur still dusted with sugar ash. Pliskin was sitting on an overturned crate, hands shaking around a dented mug of tea he hadn’t drunk from.
Both boys looked too young for how tired they were.
Bracer’s arms were folded, but his expression was softer than usual.
“You held the line,” he said firmly. “Both of you.”
Arch looked away, ears twitching. “Wasn’t like we had much choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Bracer replied. “And you chose to stand.”
Pliskin swallowed. “My traps actually worked?”
“They were extremely helpful,” Bracer said. “That tripline near the east root stopped three rushers and bought Hughes enough time to get the wounded inside.”
Pliskin blinked down into his tea.
For the first time all evening, something like pride flickered through his fear.
Arch’s shoulders lifted slightly too, though he tried very hard to pretend they didn’t.
Bracer saw Celeste then.
His expression changed at once.
He crossed the courtyard toward her with the direct, no-nonsense stride of someone who had decided politeness was less important than survival.
“Commander.”
Celeste straightened automatically. “Bracer?”
“We need a plan for when you’re not here.”
No easing in.
No gentle opening.
Just that.
Celeste’s ears dipped. “I know.”
“No,” Bracer said. “I mean a real plan. Not panic. Not everyone hiding and hoping the Knights get back before the dead break through the door.”
Pitch came to stand beside her, arms folding.
Bracer continued, voice low but firm. “The Knights are the only ones who can put the zombies down permanently. Fine. We work with that. But there are Purebloods here who can still scout, warn, barricade, trap, delay, and evacuate. A civilian force. Trained properly. Good armour. Clear signals. No heroics.”
Celeste listened, brows knitting.
“They track zombie movement,” Bracer said. “Set traps. Slow them down. Keep people alive until you and the others can get there. It buys time.”
Pitch nodded. “That’s a good idea.”
Celeste hugged her arms around herself. “But if they get bitten…”
“They’ll turn,” Bracer said plainly. “Yes.”
Her face tightened.
“That’s what training and good armour are for,” he added. “Distance. Shields. Rules. Retreat routes. Nobody goes out alone. Nobody tries to prove themselves. Nobody gets close unless they have to.”
Celeste looked over the courtyard.
At the survivors rebuilding barricades.
At the wounded.
At the families.
At Arch and Pliskin, who had already fought despite everything.
“I don’t want to put Pureblood civilians in danger,” she said softly.
Bracer’s mouth twitched faintly. “Commander, they’re already in danger. This gives them a way to survive it.”
Hughes appeared from beside a stack of ration crates, leaning slightly on his cane, though his eyes were sharp as ever.
“He’s right, lass,” he said. “But we’ll need funding. Armour, radios, traps, training space, medical stores. Can’t run a defence force on good intentions and leftover biscuits.”
“Depends how good the biscuits are,” Pitch muttered.
Hughes gave him a look.
Pitch raised both hands. “Noted. Serious moment.”
Arch, who had followed Bracer at a distance, stiffened.
“I’d rather the Council pay us,” he said, voice brittle. “Not hybrids.”
The courtyard seemed to tighten.
Pliskin looked at him sharply. “Arch—”
“I mean it,” Arch snapped. “I’ve never worked under one, and I won’t start now.”
Celeste went still.
Bracer turned slowly.
His voice dropped. “What is your problem with hybrids?”
Arch’s jaw clenched.
For a moment, he looked ready to answer with something ugly. Something rehearsed. Something inherited from family dinners and school lessons and every quiet little poison the Royal Quarter had ever fed its children.
Then his gaze flicked across the crowd.
Past the med tents.
Past the survivors.
Past Carys carrying a stack of bowls.
To Topsy.
She was kneeling near a crate, trying to cheer up a group of children by making a ration biscuit vanish behind her ear. She didn’t see him looking.
Arch’s eyes sharpened like daggers.
There was history there.
Celeste felt it before she understood it.
“One hybrid can ruin everything,” Arch said.
His voice was cold.
“And that’s enough.”
Then he turned and stormed off.
Pliskin stared after him, torn between following and staying.
Bracer sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Great time for years of prejudice to rear its ugly head.”
Celeste looked at Topsy again. “What happened?”
Bracer’s expression said he knew.
His mouth said otherwise.
“I’ll see if I can reason with him.”
Pitch snorted softly. “Good luck.”
Bracer ignored him and looked back at Celeste. “Think about it. A civilian delay-and-recovery squad could save lives. Not everyone will like it. Some won’t like answering to you. Some won’t like working beside hybrids. Some will come with old grudges tucked under their coats.”
His eyes softened a fraction.
“But if we train them right, they might live long enough to become better people.”
Celeste nodded slowly.
Then a small smile touched her mouth.
“We could call it Bracer’s Squad. Like when you trained us.”
Bracer blinked.
“No. No, we don’t have to—”
“It’s sticking,” Pitch said immediately.
Bracer shot him a look. “It is not sticking.”
“It’s absolutely sticking.”
Hughes chuckled. “Already stuck, mate.”
Celeste smiled a little wider. “Bracer’s Squad.”
Bracer looked like a man watching a perfectly reasonable proposal become embarrassing in real time.
“I regret speaking.”
“No, you don’t,” Hughes said.
Bracer sighed.
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
Across the courtyard, Arcade limped out of the lower hall with C.H.I.P. flickering beside him. He had a blanket over one shoulder, three diagnostic screens hovering around his head, and the expression of someone who had already decided sleep was optional but pain was making a compelling counterargument.
“I’m going to look at the gumball data,” Arcade announced. “Then I’m getting some shut-eye before my organs form a union.”
Celeste turned quickly. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Arcade said. “But in a familiar way.”
C.H.I.P. bobbed beside him. “USER STATUS: SORE, TRAUMATISED, CAFFEINE-DEFICIENT, AND MAKING POOR CHOICES.”
Arcade pointed at him. “Snitch.”
C.H.I.P. spun cheerfully.
Arcade rubbed his face. “We’ve got a kraken to kill tomorrow. I need at least three hours of unconsciousness before that nonsense.”
The word kraken landed hard in Celeste’s chest.
Jell’thuzad.
The water.
The grip.
The memories.
She pushed the thought down quickly.
Too quickly.
Carys emerged from the kitchen entrance at almost the same moment, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back, eyes wide as she took in the number of survivors still being ushered toward the dining area.
“Oh, no,” she said.
Then louder.
“Oh no.”
Mezzo, passing with a crate of blankets, glanced over. “What?”
Carys stared at the crowd in mounting horror. “Do you have any idea how many people this is? That’s breakfast. That’s lunch. That’s supper. That’s second supper for Topsy. That’s children needing soft food. That’s wounded needing broth. That’s Hughes pretending he doesn’t need extra portions when he absolutely does.”
“I do not,” Hughes said.
“You do.”
“I might.”
Carys pressed both hands to her cheeks. “I need flour. Eggs. Potatoes. Salt. More pans. Three more stoves. A miracle.”
Celeste stepped forward at once. “I can help.”
Carys looked at her. “You’ve just escaped a flying candy prison.”
“I can still stir things.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can sit and stir things.”
Carys considered this, then nodded as if that were acceptable military logic.
“Fine. Sitting stirring. No knives.”
Celeste smiled faintly. “Maybe pancakes would be good?”
Topsy appeared as if summoned by the word.
“Pancakes?”
Carys pointed at her. “Do not start.”
“Too late. Emotionally, I have started.”
Pitch groaned. “We’re planning a civilian defence force, and somehow breakfast has become the priority.”
Hughes patted his shoulder. “Lad, breakfast is always the priority. No one fights well hungry.”
Mezzo lifted his crate. “Pancakes are morale.”
“Pancakes are logistics,” Carys corrected.
“Pancakes are destiny,” Topsy whispered.
Celeste laughed softly.
For a moment, the sound warmed her.
Just a little.
They began talking over each other then—flour stores, ration syrup, whether banana mash counted as filling, whether Arcade could be banned from “improving” the batter, whether pancakes could be cooked on a shield in an emergency.
Celeste tried to follow.
She really did.
But her gaze drifted.
Rain had gathered in a shallow puddle near one of the cracked stones at her feet. The Egg Tree’s glow trembled across its surface, warping the reflection into something soft and strange.
Celeste saw herself.
Singed fur.
Tired eyes.
A scarf slipping from one shoulder.
For one heartbeat, she looked normal.
Then the puddle rippled.
And she remembered.
A cold pressure around her body.
A monstrous grip dragging her down.
Jell’thuzad’s tentacles coiling around her, squeezing, pulling her beneath dark water and darker memory.
The kraken hadn’t just tried to drown her.
It had reached deeper.
Into places she hadn’t known were there.
Long-forgotten images had stirred beneath its touch—flashes without context, feelings without names. White light. Water. A voice that wasn’t hers. A terror so old it felt inherited rather than remembered.
Tomorrow, they would face it again.
And if Jell’thuzad touched her—
If it dragged those memories up properly—
What would she see?
What would she become?
“Celeste?”
Carys’s voice cut gently through the noise.
Celeste blinked.
Everyone was still talking about pancakes.
The puddle showed only her reflection again.
Small.
Tired.
Afraid.
She forced herself to smile.
“Sorry,” she said. “Um. Pancakes. Yes. I can help with pancakes.”
But her fingers had curled tight around the lucky coin in her pocket.
And no matter how warmly the Egg Tree glowed around her, all Celeste could think of was cold water closing over her head.
