Marsh turned the cup over in his hands for the fifth time.

  His thick fingers traced the handle joint, pressing hard where old wood should have met new wood. The grain ran continuously from rim to base, as though the cup had been made this way from the start.

  He held it up to the light cutting through the shutters. Squinted at the wood through one st of gold. Tapped the base with his knuckle, listening to the sound it made - a dull, solid note.

  Leo stood across from him with his arms folded, pulse sitting high in his throat. A familiar scene entered his nostrils - the scent of cold ash in the hearth mingled with the stubborn residue of porridge clinging to the pot Sera hadn't yet scraped. It was supposed to be comforting, but today it did nothing to soothe the tremor running through his hands.

  Sera leaned against the wall near the bed, arms crossed. She'd been through this already, and was now studying someone else's version of it.

  Leo had spent the st hour expining everything - the 'magical drawings' only he could see, the energy, and the kills mechanic. And then came the live demonstration, the cup vanishing from the table and reappearing changed, because words alone weren't going to be enough.

  Now he was waiting. Bracing himself for the big-brother wounded-pride act, the 'you kept this from me' speech he'd rehearsed responses to in his head. He had apologies and justifications already lined up.

  The silence stretched.

  Then, to Leo and Sera's surprise, a grin cracked open across Marsh's face, wide and boyish, the kind Leo usually saw on his brother when they were doing something particurly stupid together. His eyes went bright, and whatever heaviness had gathered in the set of his jaw dissolved in an instant.

  "You can do this to anything?" Marsh said. The words came fast, tumbling. "Anything at all? With just a thought and some magic juice!"

  "Marsh..."

  Leo opened his mouth, closed it, and from her spot by the wall, Sera let out a quiet huff that might have been a ugh.

  "You're not angry?" Leo asked. "That I kept this from you?"

  Marsh looked up from the cup and barked out a short ugh, shaking his head.

  "Leo. You have something that would make every lord, merchant, and Academy schor within a hundred leagues lose their minds," His voice was still warm, but the ughter had cooled into a steadiness that Leo didn't hear often enough. "If you'd gone around telling people, I'd have called you a fool."

  "Besides," Marsh added, setting the cup down and leaning back in the chair until the wood groaned under his weight. "Sera knew first, right? If she didn't kill you, I'm certainly not going to."

  The knot of anxiety inside Leo's chest came fully undone.

  He pulled the cloth-wrapped bundle from the chest beside the wall and set it on the table. The fabric unfolded under his hands, revealing the three resonance bone fragments. Even in the dusty morning light, the crystalline surfaces caught and held the glow, each ring of opacity yered like the cross-section of a tiny crystal tree.

  Marsh's hand drifted toward one, then stopped, fingers hovering an inch above the surface.

  "From the giant beetle, right?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Do these have anything to do with your...skill?" Marsh leaned forward, elbows on the table. The pyful energy was back the moment he saw a new possibility.

  "When I hold one of these near a weapon or armor while using the skill," Leo answered. "The drawing shows me upgrades I couldn't have imagined on my own."

  "Show me. Show me!"

  Leo picked up Marsh's axe from where it leaned against the table leg. The weight of it pulled at his wrist. Iron head, chipped along one edge where it had bitten into the Giant Beetle's mineral crust. The haft was solid ash, darkened with sweat and grip oil, though the blueprint revealed a slight warp near the base where moisture had gotten in over the years.

  He brought the bone fragment close and the change was immediate.

  "If I go through with this," he read the blueprint as it rotated before his eyes, "every hard swing would carry a vibration through the bde. On impact, it cracks armor, shatters shell, before the edge even bites through."

  Marsh's fingers gripped the edge of the table. He was practically bouncing on the edge of his chair with barely contained eagerness.

  "That would've split that beetle open like a walnut."

  "It would have. But the axe's durability takes a severe hit. Every swing that uses the vibration degrades the weapon much faster."

  The excitement behind Marsh's eyes cooled. His grip on the table rexed, and he leaned back before shaking his head.

  "Then no," Marsh said. No hesitation.

  "You don't want to..."

  "I'm three feet from whatever's trying to kill us, little brother. If my axe comes apart in my hands down there, I'm dead."

  Leo nodded and dismissed the blueprint. The holographic lines folded away.

  "Same issue with my spear," Sera said from her pce against the wall. "The boost is enormous, but the durability loss makes it a gamble."

  "I think your tongue is sharp enough to make up for the loss of your spear," Marsh's gaze slid toward her, a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth.

  "If you know that, then you should be more careful," Sera shrugged, not at all concerned by the jab. "This sharp tongue might accidentally reveal the true amount that you lost in that gambling incident three towns over."

  The grin vanished from Marsh's face faster than the cup had vanished from the table.

  "The dice were loaded!" He sputtered, hands up defensively as he shot a gre toward Leo. "Leo. You told her?!"

  "I didn't. It's not as much of a secret as you thought it was," Leo shot back with a straight face. Technically, old Leo was the one who bbbered. New Leo didn't do anything.

  "Bullshit. Taking your wife's side, aren't you? Ganging up on your own blood now," Marsh huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, though there was no heat behind his words.

  "You started it."

  "Fine. I give up," he rolled his eyes and in a second, the grin was back. "Now try your magic on this."

  Leo took the gorget from his hand. Stiff boiled leather, darkened with age, the stitching fraying at the stress points where the hide flexed most. He brought the fragment close and the blueprint flickered.

  A force distribution modification, the same category that Sera's armor had shown.

  "Not worth it," Marsh waved a dismissive hand, setting the gorget aside. "Sounds like it'll just make my sweat spread around more evenly. What about your crossbow?"

  Leo told him about the resonant destabilization array, the sustained draw requirement, and the frequency cascade that would fracture rigid organic structures at the point of impact.

  "Five hundred and ninety energy," he finished. "I have eight-sixty."

  Marsh and Sera exchanged a gnce.

  "And the durability?" Marsh asked.

  "No loss. I guess the downside here is the sustained draw time."

  "That makes it the best choice," Marsh said.

  "You should do it," Sera took the crossbow down from its hook and walked over. "I was about to tell you the same thing st night, but I wanted to confirm the upgrades on Marsh's stuff first."

  There was nothing else Leo could say to that. He took the weapon and confirmed the upgrade. Five hundred and ninety energy drained from the skill's reserves, and the crossbow vanished from his hands. A countdown timer bloomed in the corner of his vision - twelve hours.

  "Still strange to watch, even the second time," Marsh let out a low whistle.

  Two hundred and seventy energy remaining.

  "I'm using the rest on your and Sera's armor," Leo set his hands ft on the table. "Basic hardening, reinforced stitching, better flex at the joints."

  He could see the resistance forming as Sera and Marsh opened their mouth at the same time, but he was faster.

  "I watched Sera almost bleed out down there," his voice came out ft, leaving no room for argument. "I'm not having that conversation with Dar."

  The cottage went still. A rooster crowed somewhere outside, muffled through the shutters. A cart wheel ground against packed earth in the ne.

  Marsh's mouth slowly closed. His hand, which had been raised in its dismissive wave, settled onto the table.

  Sera said nothing. She just gave Leo's hand a light squeeze.

  Neither of them fought him after that.

  "I can only do one upgrade at a time. So I'll bring your armor over to you ter," Leo told Marsh as he picked up Sera's chest piece. Boiled leather hardened further, buckles secured, stitching repced with tighter weave, the flex at the ribs improved.

  One hour. Once I upgrade Marsh's armor too, I'd have thirty energy left.

  Leo flexed his fingers against the table, working the phantom sensation of the leather out of his grip. The smell of old hide and buckle oil still clung to his hands.

  We can buy a few more armor pieces in Rockhaven, and that's everyone armored. We should be safer for the next run.

  "First floor," Marsh said, breaking the silence that had settled after the decision. He stretched his arms overhead, and the chair beneath him groaned in protest. "Next run, we stick to the first floor."

  Leo looked at him.

  "The beetles down there are manageable. You practice nding the killing shots. Sera and I practice this new formation, funneling kills to you. That way nobody gets gutted while we're still figuring out how to fight together differently."

  "He's right," Sera said. "We need reps before pushing deeper."

  Leo nodded. The logic was sound. Funneling kills sounded simple sitting at a table in the morning light. In the dark, with the clicking of chitin closing from three directions and the stink of fungal rot in every breath, simple things became complicated fast.

  "Alright," Leo agreed. "We rack up energy while practicing, then go deeper when we're ready."

  Marsh cpped his palms against his thighs and stood. The chair scraped back, relieved of his weight.

  "That's decided. Tell me when you're ready to go back down to that hell hole. I need to go," he scooped up his axe, slinging it over one shoulder with the ease of a man carrying a walking stick. "Dar's got me running to the store before midday. Something about salt and thread. Don't ask, I stopped listening after the third item."

  He cpped Leo on the shoulder hard enough to shift his weight, then turned for the door.

  "Marsh."

  His brother paused, one hand on the frame.

  "Thank you," Leo said. "For understanding."

  Marsh looked at him. That same softness from earlier passed behind his eyes, before the grin reassembled itself.

  "Buy me a drink sometime and we're even."

  The door swung shut behind him.

  Leo stood in the quiet of the cottage, listening to Marsh's heavy footsteps crunch down the path outside. Sera was already clearing the table, folding the cloth that had held the remaining two resonance bones, her movements precise and unhurried.

  "I forgot to tell him something," Leo said, already moving toward the door.

  Sera looked up. A flicker of curiosity crossed her face, but she didn't ask. Instead, she just motioned him to go with her hand.

  Leo pulled the door open. The morning air hit him, cool and damp, carrying the smell of wet grass and turned earth and woodsmoke from a neighbor's chimney. Sunlight, thin and pale through a high overcast, y ft across the ne.

  Marsh was twenty paces ahead, his broad silhouette filling the narrow path, axe slung across his back, walking with the unhurried stride of a man running an errand he didn't really care about.

  "Marsh, wait!" Leo stepped off the porch and went after him.