Ma Eunha Projected the Sealed Photo

Ma Eunha projected the sealed photo onto the screen.

"This is this week's practicum result."

All twelve students of the lowest branch class saw the photo. The underground metal door, three locks, the student council's standard seal, the time stamp reading eighteen fifty four.

Mirae watched the screen from the back row, already calculating. The moment a professor called something a result, that meant a score would attach to it. Once a score attached, conditions would follow.

"Not opening it counts as a result?" someone in the front row asked.

"If the reason for not opening it is in the record, it counts as a result." Ma Eunha changed the slide.

The next slide showed Mirae's ledger. The seal time, Garam's two lines of testimony, even Doyun's one instance of delayed disclosure, all of it intact.

Mirae saw that entry still sitting in her own ledger. No one had suggested deleting it.

"Team 7."

The four of them stood up.

"I'm proposing permanent branch team status."

The classroom stirred. Permanent branch teams were approved only two or three per grade level. None had ever come out of the lowest class.

"Are there conditions?" Mirae asked.

"There are. A permanent branch team gets priority in practicum assignments. In exchange, if an incident occurs, the whole team becomes jointly responsible." Ma Eunha said. "And the students write the contract."

"Not the academy's standard form?"

"The form exists. Students can add clauses to it."

Mirae thought of yesterday's addendum at that sentence. The academy's standard form had a clause that permanently attached ownership of undefined objects.

"Professor. Scholarship regulation chapter seven, item four. Does that apply to this contract?"

Ma Eunha paused for a moment.

"It applies."

"Then every trace of residue we produce in practicum becomes shared academy property."

"That's right."

"The petition to delete that clause is under review."

"I know." Ma Eunha said. "If you write this contract before the review result comes out, the students will be signing under that clause."

Mirae saw the structure of that answer. The professor was volunteering an unfavorable fact first. Up until yesterday, this woman had been the type who didn't say such things.

"Can we wait?"

"If you wait, the proposal moves to next semester. Next semester I might not be your supervisor."

That was the real condition. Mirae understood it.

After class the four of them stayed behind. Mirae had something to confirm before deciding.

"Are you all deciding this knowing everything? Permanent status doesn't allow class transfer."

"What do you mean." Doyun asked.

"Right now Yu Seorin is top of the class. Next semester she could move up to the upper branch." Mirae looked at Seorin. "If you sign for permanent branch status, you can't move up."

Seorin's face already knew that.

"I put my top rank on the line in yesterday's duel."

"You won, though."

"I won. But having put it on the line, now I know." Seorin said. "Top rank isn't something I want to protect. What matters is what I can do with it."

"What about you, Garam?"

"There's nowhere for me to move up to." Garam said. "But separate from that, I want to be here."

Mirae didn't answer when it was her turn. Instead she opened the form.

Drafting the contract started at three in the afternoon.

The academy's standard form had eleven articles. Mirae started writing from article twelve.

"Article twelve. Each team member holds one immediate right of refusal. If another team member says stop, ability use is halted on the spot."

"That was in the temporary contract." Garam said.

"It was in the temporary one, and this is permanent." Mirae said. "In a permanent contract, we need a cost for violation."

She wrote the next line.

"Upon violation, the entire team's scholarship support and ranking are frozen."

"The entire team?" Seorin asked.

"The entire team."

"Only the person who violated it should be enough."

"Then we abandon one person and the rest stay." Mirae didn't set down her pen. "If it's the entire team, we watch each other. That's the point."

Seorin read that clause three times. Then she offered one of her own.

"Article fourteen. A team member's contribution items are not to be wagered on another team member's win or loss."

Mirae knew where that sentence came from. It was the reason Seorin had given up the rematch in yesterday's duel.

"That's the same content as the academic committee's agenda item."

"The agenda might not pass. We can put it into the contract ourselves."

Garam pressed his palm flat on the desk. That was the motion he made before stating his own clause.

"Article fifteen. The right of refusal can be exercised even on an unconfirmed sense."

Mirae wrote the sentence down exactly as spoken. Then she asked.

"Garam, this is the most disadvantageous one for the person using it. If you stop something based on something unconfirmed, you bear the responsibility for it."

"I know. That's why there's one more line after it." Garam said. "The person exercising the right of refusal records joint responsibility for any resulting loss."

Mirae understood that the two lines were one clause. Authority and responsibility sat on the same line.

Doyun spoke third.

"Me too, one."

"Go ahead."

"Article sixteen. A team member reports any offer received from outside the team to the team." Doyun said. "Report it when you receive it. Not after you've turned it down."

Mirae's hand stopped. That clause was most disadvantageous to Doyun himself. And it was disadvantageous to Mirae too.

"What's the deadline?"

"Twenty four hours."

"Why is this the clause you're offering?"

"I said it after I'd already turned it down last week." Doyun said. "At the time I thought I'd done well. But yesterday I was the only one who knew the key's color. From the second time on, it got easier."

Listening to that sentence, Mirae thought of the paper tucked inside her bag. The paper with her father's company seal and two lists on it.

Twenty four hours. If that clause took effect, Mirae would have to say something before the day was out.

Not exactly, though. The clause said to report offers received from outside the team. What Mirae had wasn't an offer. It was a contract from four years ago, and an addendum's seal.

Since it wasn't an offer, it wasn't covered by the clause. Mirae built that logic in three seconds.

Once she'd built it, she recognized it as the exact kind of logic she'd hated her whole life. Slipping out through a gap in the wording.

"I'll add the clause." Mirae said.

Having added it, she offered no clause of her own when her turn came. Seorin noticed.

"Park Mirae, what's your clause?"

"I don't have one."

"You reviewed everyone else's writing through article eleven, you wrote articles twelve and thirteen yourself, and now you have no clause. What does that mean?"

Mirae could have answered that question. Instead of answering, she opened the signature line.

"I don't have one now. I'll add it later."

"When is later?"

"I don't know." Mirae said honestly. "But I know I need one clause of my own."

Garam spoke then. "That's off beat."

Mirae looked at him. Garam hadn't said it to criticize. He'd said it to let her know.

"I know." Mirae said. "For now, that's my best."

Seorin took that answer as it was. The condition she'd staked yesterday was still in effect.

The four of them signed overlapping at the same point. It was the academy form's method for joint signatures. Four names overlapping within one space.

Mirae was last.

Mirae decided the signing order. She didn't put Doyun first. Garam was first.

"Why me?" Garam asked.

"Because your clause is the most disadvantageous." Mirae said. "If the most disadvantaged person signs first, the rest can't back out."

Garam signed. He pressed his palm to the desk and then wrote.

Seorin was second, Doyun third.

When the pen lifted from that point, light shone out.

It was very faint. Not fluorescence, not reflection. A line split into four branches lay thin over the ink, and about ten seconds later it disappeared.

"Did you see that?" Garam asked.

"I saw it." Mirae was already taking a photo.

"What is this?"

Ma Eunha checked the contract.

"It's a stabilizing effect of contract magic. It appears when multiple people agree to the same condition." She said. "A common phenomenon."

Mirae watched the speed of that answer. Yesterday, with the compass, this woman had said she didn't know. Today she answered instantly.

An instant answer means one of two things. Genuinely knowing, or having it already prepared.

"It's common, but I've never seen it before." Mirae said.

"Joint signatures aren't common."

Mirae wrote that answer down. A common phenomenon, an uncommon condition. Two sentences sitting together became a reason to look at them again later.

The contract's effective time was sixteen forty seven.

And at that exact time, a sound came from the basement.

Garam stood up first. "Something happened down there."

The four of them went to the stairs. Basement level two, the corridor not on any map, in front of the sealed door.

The seal was unchanged.

There was a gauge on the wall beside the door. It wasn't new since yesterday, it had been off yesterday.

Now it was on, and it displayed a number.

13

Mirae photographed that number. Her hand shook while taking it, so she took it twice.

The gauge had no unit. Only a number.

"That's the same number as the thirteenth bell." Mirae said.

"Whether the same number means anything, we don't know." Seorin said.

"We don't. But it turned on at sixteen forty seven today. That's the exact time our contract took effect."

Garam heard that sentence and put his ear to the door.

"The ensemble changed."

"How."

"Yesterday it was one beat late. Now it isn't late." Garam stepped back. "It's moving along with us."

Then, from inside the door, came a knock, three times.

Knock, knock, knock.

The intervals were even. Not urgent.

Garam listened to that interval.

"This is the rhythm Seorin taps on her scabbard."

Seorin looked at her own scabbard. She wasn't tapping it right now.

Mirae recorded the knocking. She held up her device and stood in front of the door for fifteen seconds.

After finishing the recording, she opened the team ledger. There were five entries for today.

Permanent branch team contract established. Articles twelve through sixteen. Four branch mark confirmed. Gauge lit at 13. Three knocks from inside the door.

She could have written a sixth line. Team member Park Mirae's undisclosed item.

Mirae didn't write that line. Instead she closed the ledger, and touched the paper inside her bag once.