"Don't try to speak, and don't try to run. I'm Cantata Two; every twitch you make flickers like a candle in my eye."

Night Frost slid in without a whisper, her palm soft and iron over the girl's mouth, while a Crimson Gold Flame hovered before the girl's chest like a captive star.

An airy, lilting voice drifted from behind, feather-light, brushing her ear like a wind chime in a cold breeze.

Fear cinched her gut like wet rope; she didn't dare move.

She was just an ordinary person, a reed in the current, not a Magic Maiden.

If she were, she'd already be thrashing, and a Magic Cannon would roar, smashing the shadow glued to her back.

Those defiant scenes had been daydream smoke in her skull, dissolving like morning mist.

In Night Frost's hands she had no leverage, only a lamb on the block, breath thin as thread.

That earlier spill was likely Night Frost's sly cruelty, a hidden whirlpool tugging her ankles.

She'd hit the floor and wore mud like bruises, lingering in the locker room, a door left ajar for a thief.

If her hunch held, Night Frost meant to slip into the lab and fish up its secrets.

She'd been chosen because their builds matched like mirrored silhouettes; wearing her badge, Night Frost would slide through like shadow.

After all, they were colleagues only on the surface, faces in a corridor, names on a sheet.

This time too, their team leader cracked the whip, driving them to brew a reagent against some creature.

When dawn came, the glory would crown the leader, rain of promotions and raises falling on one umbrella and leaving her dry.

She held no fondness for those two shapes beside her—one without hunger, barnacled to the leader.

But she was different, flame under ash; one day she'd climb to the top of the Modification Center and breathe thin, rare air.

For now, bold vows needed shelving; a cold crisis pressed like ice on the spine.

Night Frost's flame could snuff her like paper, body sifted to ash, and Night Frost would wear her skin into the lab.

She'd seen District Twenty One's Magic Maidens execute the law, their eyes like winter steel.

Accomplices never slipped the net; caught, you were dropped like a stone or locked away for eleven or twelve winters.

Privately erecting a Modification Center snapped the law like a beam; its founders faced guilt fit to wipe out nine generations.

Even a bottom-rung cleaner was a fish in District Twenty One's net, no gap to wriggle through.

Her mind flapped like a caged moth, mapping exits.

Only three roads lay ahead: enough money to buy breath, enough power to make Night Frost pause, or ties deep in District Twenty One so she wouldn't dare touch her.

Her bubbles of fantasy rose and popped, Night Frost's voice pricking them back to earth.

"Do you want to live? Then sign this covenant. I just wrote it."

"Covenant?"

That word rang new; at the Modification Center they bound people with contracts or chips, not covenants she'd ever heard of.

Covenants were Twelfth District's patent, her cut-rate master having mended an ancient Formation by special means.

Other districts might hoard a few old covenant scrolls, but only the Twelfth could spin them in batches like silk.

A covenant obeyed equivalent exchange, scales balanced like a merchant's measure.

If Night Frost inked lopsided demands with no matching give, the covenant wouldn't knit.

For example: Night Frost and Blade—she joined the Twelfth District, obeying orders selectively, while Blade aided her in reviving Aklatia for a season.

Sometimes the balance tilted: the covenantor could pay more, the bound party less.

Take Sun Xiao—Night Frost wrote sugar-coated clauses, mostly to his benefit; he signed gladly, and the covenant still sealed.

Now Sun Xiao was sipping tea at an Order Keeper branch, benefits weighing his pockets like stones.

What price for sweet fruit? The rind always cuts the tongue.

Just then, Sun Xiao stepped out of the Order Keeper branch, hatred for Night Frost burning like bile.

He slammed a fist into a utility pole; pain jolted like lightning, and he snatched his hand back.

He kneaded his reddened knuckles, slung an empty bag, and stared at the jeep seized by those Magic Maidens.

He was back to bare bones; plans to sell the car, grow big, and strike back had washed into the gutter the moment he tasted freedom.

The girl was no Sun Xiao; Night Frost wouldn't shortchange her.

With a magic pen, Night Frost wrote on the covenant sheet both what she would pay and what the girl must surrender.

When asked about her work and actions, she couldn't lie; and she could never leak a sliver of today's tale.

Night Frost's give was generous: an olive branch to a formal organization, another to an underground one, and a promised wage doubled.

Even if some of it was pie in the sky, the spread dazzled like a banquet.

She could hardly believe Night Frost had come to hand her a job like a wrapped gift.

All she had to do was fill the blanks on her application and tell Night Frost.

But did this covenant have teeth, or was it just a spell dressed in paper?

She chased her tail in circles and found no path to refusal.

If she refused and tried to drag Night Frost down with her, she'd turn to ash first.

Signing cost her nothing but ink and a breath.

She'd always dreamed of promotion and raises, but with only one or two years on the clock, she lacked the ladder—especially under that team leader's shadow.

She read again, heart pecking like a sparrow, and saw she could join both an official and an unofficial outfit.

They had to be mutually supportive; rumors said you got paid just for your name on the roll.

Double wages sounded almost too easy, like plucking peaches over a low wall.

She took the magic pen and signed without a tremor—either way was death, so why not choose the pasture with greener grass?

When the covenant sealed, the paper drifted into gray confetti, ash-snow spiraling in still air.

An ethereal, far-off, languid note wandered through the not-quite-small locker room, and only Night Frost and the girl could hear it.

She hadn't believed in gods, but a small shrine lit inside her chest; this covenant felt anything but fake.

Maybe she should dig up some knowledge on covenants, sifting facts like sand.

Earlier Night Frost had glanced at her form and found her name—Zhou Jiaxin, a simple name like a river pebble.

Zhou Jiaxin watched the last ember of the covenant paper fade, wanting to peer into its gears; curiosity glowed in her eyes like fireflies.

She was ready to boot up a computer or pepper Night Frost with questions.

Night Frost told her to get back to work first; talk later.

Zhou Jiaxin invited Night Frost to stay in her dorm; she rarely went home, three hundred of three sixty-five nights under institutional lights.

Her home lay far from the Modification Center, distance stretching like a desert.

Night Frost didn't fuss; the covenant said both sides must guard each other's safety and never shove the other into danger.

Night Frost hid in a cardboard box, and Zhou Jiaxin pushed it to her room, slipping past cameras like shade.

With an insider helping, everything ran smoother, like oil on gears.

She tossed the box into her room and headed to work, footsteps fading down the sterile hall.

When the sound died, Night Frost climbed out, eyes combing the room like a net.

Special gray metal walls stared back, cold as moonstone under her palm.

The space was twenty-some square meters; basic living gear lined up, neat as soldiers.

A single bed stood by the door; beside it a table piled with lab materials like a paper mountain.

Night Frost flipped two pages; as a freshman, she couldn't catch a single word, letters like ants.

Chemical symbols, rising curves, advanced functions—her talent agent major left her blind to this star-map.

So this was research talent?

Aklatia lacked exactly this kind of mind—sharp as a blade—and poaching her would be perfect.

Then Qianchun could helm finance, Eye Orb and Zhou Jiaxin steer R&D, threads weaving into a tapestry.

Back to the room: staff treatment seemed decent, one-person dorms guarding privacy like shutters.

The only flaw was the grind; Zhou Jiaxin and her peers looked worked to the bone, overtime like tide.

Night Frost found a seat, thumbed her phone, and sent a message to her landlady, words fluttering like paper cranes.

Trouble had her tied up; she'd be late—please see to Kaneko's dinner.

The landlady agreed briskly, and Night Frost's heart loosened like a knot untied.

She sat cross-legged in the deepest corner and sank into meditation, breath smooth as a calm lake.

A round moon hung overhead, cold light spilling over the world like frost.

The air was so still you could hear the wind comb leaves with a soft hush.

Zhao Qingsnow wore a black cloak, feet touching rubble like a cat, quick and silent.

She had run hard for half a day, and now the horizon felt right—near the meeting spot the Old Woman had named.

The Old Woman had said three Cantata Twos had marked her, so Zhao Qingsnow moved with double caution, heartbeat tapping like a drum.

She was Cantata Two herself, but she wouldn't clash head-on with three; old scars told her more than three shadows had gathered.

Her ice-blue eyes watched the tree shadows ahead; though blurred, a crouched silhouette seemed to ripple there.

She pinged the Old Woman on her communicator, signal cutting the night like a thin wire.

The reply came fast, but that silhouette didn't budge, a stone in the grass—likely an enemy.

"Where are you now."

Zhao Qingsnow turned her gaze around the rubble; this should be the rendezvous, true as a compass, yet no Old Woman showed.

An unnamed unease rose inside her like cold water climbing the spine.

She had to leave this place.