The hallway outside Room 214 swallowed the noise of twenty students scattering toward their next obligations, and I stood in the current of bodies with my phone already in my hand, thumbs moving before my brain caught up.

Me: Won the election. Male rep for 1-B.

Sloane’s response came in under four seconds.

Sloane: Obviously.

Sloane: My boyfriend doesn’t lose.

Sloane: Celebration tonight. My room. 8pm. Wear something I can take off.

The Devotion’s Echo hummed warm in my chest, her satisfaction bleeding through the connection like sunlight through a window. She wasn’t surprised. She’d never been surprised. The woman had decided I was going to win before I’d decided to run, and the universe had apparently received the memo.

Me: Yes ma’am.

Sloane: Good boy.

I was still grinning at my phone like an idiot when a hand closed around my wrist and pulled me sideways into the flow of traffic heading toward the main building exit.

"Nope." Felicity’s voice was bright and non-negotiable. "Phone away. You’re mine for the next three hours."

"I have Combat Theory at two."

"Combat Theory is cancelled."

"It’s definitely not cancelled."

"It is for you." She steered me around a cluster of second-years without breaking stride, her grip warm and surprisingly strong. "Dravid will understand. His star pupil just got elected to represent twenty of the most chaotic first-years in Halloran history. That’s worth one missed positioning drill."

"Dravid will absolutely not understand." I tried to slow down. She just tightened her hold and kept moving. "Dravid will document my absence in seventeen different color-coded files and use it as evidence for whatever psychological profile he’s building on me."

"Then we’ll give him something interesting to document." She glanced back at me over her shoulder, blonde ponytail swinging with the motion, blue eyes carrying that particular gleam that meant the conversation was over and I just hadn’t accepted it yet. "Come on, bestie. You just gave the speech of a lifetime in front of our entire class. The speech. The one where you somehow managed to be funny and competent at the same time. You can’t go straight back to getting your ass kicked by Camellia Thorn. That would be narratively unsatisfying."

"Narratively unsatisfying."

"The worst kind of unsatisfying. Trust me."

I knew that tone. I’d heard that tone from Sloane approximately fifteen hundred times in nine years. It was the tone of someone who had made a decision about your immediate future and was now gently but firmly escorting you toward the outcome she’d already mapped.

Fighting it was technically possible. Winning was not.

"Fine." I pocketed my phone. "Three hours. But if Dravid asks, you held me hostage."

"Deal." Felicity beamed at me like I’d just agreed to something considerably more binding than an afternoon at the campus cinema. "You’re gonna love this, I promise. The Reel does these throwback screenings on Tuesdays. Old hero documentary footage, agency PR films from the nineties, stuff from before the ranking system got standardized. It’s like watching archaeological evidence of how weird this industry used to be."

We hit the main doors and she pushed through into the afternoon light, the September sun catching the gold in her hair and the curve of her shoulders in her cropped hoodie. The Ecchi Logic trait pulsed in my peripheral vision like an unwanted notification, registering the way her high-waisted skirt moved against her hips, the glimpse of toned stomach between fabric edges, the confident swing of her stride.

I dismissed the observation the way I dismissed most observations about Felicity Hardy. By acknowledging it existed and then filing it under things I was choosing not to act on.

"Where exactly are you kidnapping me to?"

"The Reel." She said it like I should know what that meant. "Campus cinema. Building F, basement level. They do afternoon screenings for students who need to decompress between blocks."

"We have a cinema on campus?"

Felicity stopped walking. She turned to face me with an expression of genuine horror.

"Lukas Belmont." Her hands went to her hips. "You’ve been at Halloran for two weeks. Two weeks. And you didn’t know we have a cinema?"

"I’ve been busy."

"Busy doing what? Getting into fights? Kissing girls during training exercises? Running for political office?"

"All of those things, actually."

"That’s not an excuse." She grabbed my wrist again and resumed walking, faster now. "The Reel is sacred space. It’s where heroes go to not be heroes for ninety minutes. They have reclining seats. They have the good popcorn. They have this absolutely criminal butter situation that I think might violate several health codes but tastes like heaven."

"You’re very passionate about campus movie theater butter."

"Someone has to be."

Building F rose ahead of us, a squat concrete structure that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated natural light and loved brutalist architecture. Felicity navigated us through the main entrance, past a lobby that smelled like old textbooks and energy drinks, and down a stairwell I would have walked past a hundred times without noticing.

The basement opened into something that felt transplanted from a different decade. Red carpet worn thin in the traffic patterns. Art deco light fixtures casting warm yellow pools. A concession stand staffed by a bored-looking second-year with purple hair and a name tag that said QUINN.

"Hardy." Quinn nodded at Felicity with the weary recognition of a regular customer. "The usual?"

"Two usuals." Felicity was already pulling out her phone to pay. "And extra butter packets. It’s a celebration."

"What are we celebrating?"

"My best friend just got elected class representative."

Quinn’s eyes flicked to me. Something shifted in their expression. "You’re Belmont. The interview guy."

"The interview guy," I confirmed.

"My roommate has opinions about you."

"Good opinions or bad opinions?"

"Both. Simultaneously." Quinn started scooping popcorn into a bucket the size of a small child. "She thinks you’re either going to save the hero industry or burn it down, and she’s not sure which one she’s rooting for."

"Tell her I’ll try to make it entertaining either way."

"She’d like that." Quinn slid two buckets across the counter, followed by a truly alarming number of butter packets. "Theater three. You’ve got it to yourselves for the next hour. Wednesday afternoons are dead."

Felicity collected our supplies with the efficiency of someone who’d done this many times. "Thanks, Quinn. You’re a star."

"I’m a minimum wage employee with a caffeine addiction. But I appreciate the sentiment."

The theater was dark and empty, rows of plush red seats arranged in a gentle curve facing a screen that seemed too large for the intimate space. Felicity led me to the back row, the seats that reclined furthest, and dropped into one with a satisfied sigh.

"Sit." She patted the seat beside her. "The previews are the best part."