“Since I met him, he’s acted weird,” Max explained quickly. “And now he’s just argued with the climber president. I think we should go see what it was about. There’s something about him that I think is suspicious, but he’s so powerful, it’s hard to bring up with anyone else.”

Casey took in the words quickly and nodded. “Alright, let’s check it out.”

As casually as possible, they slipped off the dance floor and headed in the direction where Samuel Archer had exited.

Max wondered how safe it was to chase such a powerful figure in the tower-zone, but maybe as student climbers they were in the best diplomatic position to do so. Hopefully, it wasn’t too dangerous to sneak after him.

Max and Casey turned the corner just fast enough to see Samuel enter an elevator going down.

They rushed down the stairs to see what the man did at the bottom.

They kept the door ajar in the stairwell and watched the ground floor lobby of the building.

The elevator chimed and a door opened and Samuel marched out into the lobby. He held a cell phone up to his ear.

“Make sure those beyond the wall are ready for the call to action soon,” he said, before shutting his phone.

A limousine waited outside and the man stepped in and shut the door behind him.

Max and Casey looked at each other.

Beyond the wall?

What the heck was that all about?

* * *

Max and Casey agreed to investigate the Samuel Archer incident further, but after the night of the winter ball, there was simply a flurry of activity.

There were a few final classes at the academy all directed about how to best prepare for the final exams at the beginning of February.

“For the final exam,” their instructor explained, “You’ll all be competing in a fighting tournament against one another. I recommend you all double your training efforts. That is all.”

Cyrus grinned menacingly at Max. The boy was eager to fight him. Max felt the exact same way.

As the students started to disperse and go about their own independent study, Max contemplated how he was more than halfway through the school term. Time flies when you’re having fun, Max mused to himself. Or, really, it was more like, time flies when you’re constantly fighting for your life.

With so much going on, Max and Casey agreed to wait for the holidays to pass before they made any more moves to investigate Samuel Archer further.

And so Max focused on his studies and training as much as he could and tried to relax for the holidays.

It was going to be his first Christmas not spent at the orphanage in the outer-rim.