Liam is drowning under the pressure of his A-Levels, and his fury is becoming impossible to contain. He's tried everything: ranting to his sister, punishing runs, pushing his body to the limit, but the anger only grows stronger. When his usual coping strategies spectacularly fail him at the worst possible moment, he stumbles upon a scientific truth that changes everything he thought he knew about managing rage. What follows is a journey from destructive heat to careful cooling, and the discovery that sometimes the answer isn't releasing the pressure, it's learning to turn down the flame.

Lydian, a skilled archivist surviving under a monetised welfare system, struggles to maintain her independence while paying a steep social and magical price. When a city-wide Arcane collapse exposes the failure of the Doctrine of Autonomy, she and a grassroots practitioner, Nara, ignite a Sympathy-based mutual-aid movement that rewrites the city’s rules and replaces shame with shared care.