Kion was right.

  She did feel better after waking up. The second time.

  The first had been at dawn, the same way it always was, no matter how late she’d fallen asleep. Habit pulled her eyes open. Habit put her feet halfway out of bed before he tapped her arm, still half-buried in his pillow, and pulled her back.

  “Sleep more,” he’d murmured.

  She’d argued. She felt fine, she always felt fine. But he’d been stubborn in the way he sometimes got, warm and immovable. So she’d let herself drift again. Somehow, it had worked.

  When she woke the second time, the eighth bell was ringing. Kion was already up, dressed, smiling at her like the sun needed competition, a plate of pancakes balanced in one hand and a small bowl of honey in the other.

  He said he had requested to come in late today, as compensation for the overtime yesterday. He was staying for breakfast. She didn’t mind the sound of it.

  The pancakes were warm and soft, and the honey tasted like a morning that couldn’t last. She savored each bite anyway.

  He let her reach for her papers only when her plate was empty. No pout, no theatrical sigh.

  Dangerous, the way his moods could bend hers so easily. Better not to think about that. Better to think about the task ahead.

  “You can do it,” Kion said, close enough for his shadow to fall over her page. A warm palm brushed her hair, “you’ve been preparing all day and night. You’ll be fine.”

  He went to work not long after.

  Her hand moved quickly over the page. Fresh mind, full stomach. Everything she’d planned for her report was already formed in her head. Yesterday had been for rough drafts and quiet revisions. Today was for setting it in stone.

  She was just finishing when the first bell struck again. This time, the sound sank sharp between her ribs.

  It was almost time.

  ‘Lunlun’ would have to go back in the closet, shut tight. ‘Writ’ would have to walk into the crocodile’s jaw.

  She drew a long breath.

  Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold.

  Not perfect, but enough to steady her hands.

  She started to prepare and tidy her appearance. Took another long breath. And one more. Then she closed the door inside her mind. Locked Lunlun away until there was no trace left.

  Let Writ take over. Let them test her. Let them watch her stand.

  It somehow felt lighter today.

  Maybe... because now, finally, she had somewhere safe to fall when it was over.

  The wait stretched long enough for her to start counting the uneven scuffs on the far wall. No clock in the room, of course, but the silence behind the door made time drag its heels.

  A click of hinges cut through it. The office door swung just enough to let Caustic step out, black sleeves crisp, his expression cleanly arranged.

  He didn’t speak to her first. Instead, he angled toward the gap and murmured something low to whoever waited inside. A faint reply, then he straightened, turning her way.

  He gestured her to come in. No explanation. No need for one, apparently.

  Then he took her report and replaced it with a sheet of paper, the checklist for the interrogation. Nothing more. Just the list, blank and bare, without her margin notes, without a single written answer.

  She passed the threshold, Caustic still waiting by the door, and entered the room without words.

  The layout was unchanged. Permanent, now, it seemed.

  The long table still split the room, three seats behind it, and one chair in front. Tiran in the center, Caedern on the right.

  Except this time, the seat to Writ’s left was empty. The Veiled Woman was nowhere to be seen.

  Writ walked to her usual place, one step behind the chair. As always. Making sure her arm didn’t hang too tense at her side.

  Caustic closed the door behind her, then moved to stand on her left, a step forward.

  Tiran’s attention cut to him, “Caustic Ink. State your purpose.”

  Caustic inclined his head, “Caustic Ink, reporting in Black Quill's absence. She has been assigned to concurrent duty elsewhere.”

  “Acknowledged,” Tiran said, tone flat as glass, “assume her duties as instructed.”

  Caedern’s eyes flicked between them. If there was interest, it was buried under layers of boredom.

  Caustic crossed to the vacant seat, set his files on the table, and prepared his pen.

  A glance to Tiran, “prepared to commence.”

  Writ blinked, startled by the implication.

  A shadow had been allowed to take a seat alongside Tiran and Caedern.

  Caustic Ink was unmistakably Treshfold-made. There was no denying it. Yet somehow, he had crossed the line between disposable and enforcer, accepted without a tracker circling his neck or wrist.

  Something she had never encountered. Not once. Not in all her years of obedience.

  And here she was, under endless scrutiny, all because she had inadvertently stepped on the wrong tile.

  The unfairness pressed cold against her ribs. She shoved the thought aside. It wouldn’t help her now. Not here, not today.

  “Silent Writ,” Tiran’s voice cut through the silence, steady and formal, “begin your report.”

  Writ took a breath and began.

  “Subject’s name: Rowan Brennan. Senior researcher. Employed at Blissbane Research Facility, Chasm Lily, approximately ten to eleven years.”

  Her tone was clipped, precise, measured. She didn’t let her gaze wander from Tiran.

  “Access level: full clearance to research and handle aspects of the Blissbane Cure project, specifically focused on the flower’s effects and negation methods since year 1219.”

  “Knowledge of cure trials: confirmed ongoing from year 1219. Initial formulations required three to seven doses for blight clearance, varying by individual severity. Latest version, post-Bronze Concord data, reduced dosage to one to three.”

  Calm down. You got this.

  “External contacts: confirmed communication with the ‘Glitter Group,’ likely connected to the Bronze Concord, as inferred from subject’s reaction upon mention.”

  Caustic's pen followed along her speech.

  “Communication: unauthorized exchanges established with the Glitter Group; subject implied plans to leak cure data to them. Motives remain unclear but may stem from dissatisfaction with current cure policy.”

  Tiran's expression didn't change. His gaze pierced her. Judging.

  “Involvement in information leak: contact with Glitter Group confirmed. Subject gave ambiguous and hesitant responses regarding active participation and intent to leak information. Clear admission was not fully obtained.”

  The corner of Caedern’s lip curved upward, faintly.

  “Further confirmation to clarify contradictions and obtain explicit admissions is recommended, alongside cross-verification with communication logs and contextual evidence, which were not accessible during this session.”

  Just a little bit more.

  “Stance on current cure policy: subject considers policy unfair due to internal use limitation; supports broader dissemination.”

  She paused, letting the facts settle, confirming she’d covered every point on their checklist. The checklist sheet stayed in her grasp, kept low.

  “Additional observations: during interrogation, subject displayed signs of psychological strain. Marked hesitations, gaze avoidance. Subject denied answering information about the group itself.”

  She shifted slightly.

  “A notable behavior observed: subject exhibited symptoms consistent with delusional thinking. Eyes flicking and head turning back and fort, as if an attempt to search for something non existent, repeated self-correction mid-talk. Unable to conclusively determine cause. However, hypothesis posits exposure to Blissbane flower derivatives during cure synthesis as contributing factor to cognitive dissonance.”

  Her eyes lifted momentarily, scanning the faces before her. Neutral.

  “Subject’s compliance was partial and reluctant. Resistance apparent but nonviolent.”

  “If a conclusion must be drawn: subject strongly implied involvement in an attempt to leak the cure."

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  "The implied motive stemmed from personal ideological disagreement with current cure usage policy, accompanied by the assertion that an alternative version of the cure exists, allegedly laced with an additional, undisclosed substance."

  "A further contributing bias appears rooted in the belief that Accord agents were responsible for the death of his family.”

  "This conclusion, however, is drawn from limited information available during the session. As noted previously, further confirmation is recommended."

  She took a long breath.

  “That concludes the report.”

  No one moved for a heartbeat. The air felt held in place, the room waiting to exhale.

  Except for Caedern’s low hum.

  Caustic asked, “Did the subject mention this ‘Glitter Group’ himself first?”

  Writ kept her gaze fixed ahead. “No. I listed likely contacts. Based on his family ties, his origins in Brandholt, and his time at Bronze’s academy. He reacted to both ‘Bronze Concord’ and ‘Glitter Group’ when I spoke them aloud. I inferred a link.”

  “What made you jump to that conclusion?”

  “A prior mission,” she said. “I’d seen them operating quietly on Bronze’s outskirts. No clear motives. Later, I was tasked with finding information on a covert operation by Bronze, which implied the name was already known in official circles.”

  “And if you’d guessed that name and he hadn’t reacted?”

  “Then he wasn’t connected to them.” Writ’s eyes didn’t flick toward him. Then she added, “But he reacted. I didn’t give him any new intel. He already knew. I only confirmed his knowledge.”

  Caedern tried, and failed, to suppress a dry chuckle. Writ didn’t acknowledge him.

  Caustic pressed on, voice steady.

  “His notable behavior. What made you connect it to Blissbane exposure?”

  Writ’s gaze lifted, calm but precise.

  “You immediately suspected Blissbane when I mentioned the oddities in my Tenzurah transcription. Delusions and hallucinations are documented symptoms. Since Rowan worked closely with the flower for years, prolonged exposure seemed the likeliest cause.”

  She paused, breathing steady.

  “I researched Blissbane further to support this hypothesis. Confirmed three points: hallucinations occur, though rarely; the flower itself causes the ailment; and symptoms can manifest after a delay post-exposure.”

  Caustic’s tone was skeptical.

  “Wouldn’t he just consume the cure, then? Clear the symptoms?”

  Writ answered evenly.

  “I assume he’s been detained for some time before this session. No access to the cure. My conclusion comes from personal experience with the correction cycle.”

  Caedern exhaled amusement.

  Tiran leaned forward, eyes sharp.

  “How did you acquire such detailed knowledge about Blissbane? You didn’t mention this weeks ago.”

  Writ met his gaze without hesitation.

  “I sought out books and archives. Wrote all citations in my written report.”

  Caedern’s lips twitched.

  “So you actually entered Kesherra yesterday?”

  Writ blinked, annoyance flickering briefly before she pushed it down.

  “Yes. Public access. Used my official identity. Familiar layout from past assignments. Avoided heavily guarded areas.”

  Tiran nodded slowly.

  “To support your assumptions.”

  Writ’s tone was matter-of-fact.

  “I anticipated questions about the subject’s odd reactions. Questions I couldn’t answer. So I sought information to avoid baseless speculation.”

  Caedern’s voice cut in, sharp and accusing.

  “And not to hide how you tried to signal the subject?”

  She blinked, eyes locking on Caedern.

  She’d expected the question, but not from him.

  He was there, in that room. Had seen everything. No signal. No subtle cue. No attempt. Yet he said it anyway.

  Her chest tightened. There was no denying his version of events. His word outweighed hers.

  A slow breath. She held it. Gathered the fragments of calm she could find. Because she had no choice but to face this.

  Her gaze stayed on him, unflinching.

  “If you saw something, then you already have your conclusion. My report stands as given. I did not deviate from it.”

  She let the words settle, her tone stripped bare of anything he could claim as defiance. Only a statement. Only what could be repeated without breaking under its own weight.

  Tiran’s gaze didn’t flicker, “did you do it? Send any signal?”

  “No,” the word was steady, “I didn’t. I wasn’t the reason for the subject’s odd reactions. Something else did, something I couldn’t detect nor answer.”

  A beat stretched, thin and deliberate. His eyes narrowed just enough to sharpen the air between them.

  “Then explain what you did detect,” he said, the edge in his voice faint but intentional, as though testing for cracks. “Everything, without omission.”

  Her reply came with the same precision as if she were reading from the report, though the rhythm of her breathing had slowed. Measured, kept in check.

  “He was calm at first. That changed when I pushed about the Glitter Group. He mentioned that we've already decided the verdict and the session was just a formality. The change persisted until I pushed further about the reason he contacted them. He lashed out, then stopped himself. He looked... as if listening to something I couldn’t hear."

  A trace of silence hung before she continued, her tone still steady but the words edged with an awareness she did not voice.

  "Mana sense didn't detect anything, no trace of telepathic magic, nor anything or anyone invisible. He didn't answer when I asked why he stopped. He continue to cut himself mid-talk after that, but remained compliant until the end of the session.”

  Tiran’s shifted. Quiet, deliberate, and without breaking eye contact.

  “So my best guess is the Blissbane,” she said, “I couldn’t find any other explanation.”

  Silence.

  The kind that wasn’t simply absence of sound, but the air itself waiting to see what would come next.

  Tiran leaned back slightly in his chair, “You’ve given us the facts. Now we want your view.”

  A pause. Long enough to signal this wasn’t a casual request, “what do you think of him? The subject. His choices. The case as a whole.”

  There it was. The actual purpose of this whole charade.

  Writ had known the report wouldn’t end neatly with her summary. They wanted something from her. Her angle, her framing. Something only useful if it came from someone with 'On Watch' stamped on their file.

  She let the silence stretch a breath longer than politeness required, weighing the shape of the question and the shape of the trap it might hide.

  “When I saw him,” she said at last, “I didn’t see defiance so much as exhaustion. Every choice after that was just fallout. Idealism clashing with the policy in practice. I assume he’d tried to suggest ways to spread the cure and was refused, or he tried to leave and wasn’t allowed. His belief about his family’s death didn’t help. That pushed him to this... recklessness. Trying to leak intel out.”

  Her gaze stayed level. “He wasn’t a fool. But by the end, the case was less about him fighting the Accord… and more about him running out of ways to.”

  Tiran’s eyes narrowed faintly, “and your thought on the cure policy?”

  “I haven’t been informed of the actual policy currently applied.”

  “What did you conclude from the session?”

  “That the clean cure was for Accord internal use only,” she let the pause hang before adding, “and the one for external use was laced with something. Probably to control the drinker remotely, given my prior experience.”

  Tiran’s gaze didn’t shift, “and? Your thought.”

  She didn’t answer immediately.

  “If control is the goal, the cure’s more than medicine. It’s leverage. Whoever drinks it...,” her voice thinned, almost imperceptibly, “...becomes as much an asset as the vials themselves. But that’s assuming the lacing actually exists. I have no confirmation.”

  “And if it were true?” His tone was almost conversational, too casual to be safe, “what would you do differently?”

  “Nothing. I’d proceed exactly as instructed,” a breath, not quite a sigh, “but I’d watch the results closely. Make sure it works as intended.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve drank it myself.”

  Caustic's voice slid in, mild but pointed, “how can you be sure the laced one was the one you drank? You’ve said yourself the clean one is for internal use.”

  She didn’t blink for three beats. Her fingers curled slightly against her thigh before she released them.

  “Because you told me so, the first time you put it in front of me,” a pause, “wasn’t it?”

  A flicker at the corner of Caustic’s lips. Gone almost before she could register it. His expression smoothed back into bland disinterest, and his pen traced another line in his hand.

  Confirmation? Or bait?

  Caedern’s voice broke in, “then you don’t mind being controlled. Having your mind overridden.”

  “Isn’t it already happening?” Her tone was even, “you have full control over me. Clean cure or not.”

  The silence that followed wasn’t heavy, but it was taut.

  Caedern’s head tilted slightly, studying her like a teacher watching a student hover between right and wrong. “Then tell us. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from this mission so far?”

  Not a reprieve. A shift in terrain. The wrong step could still send her over the edge.

  She drew in a long, steady breath.

  “That information, true or not, can be given just to see how I respond. And that my reaction matters as much as the task.”

  “If the information were true, how would you have responded differently?”

  “I wouldn’t. My role is to act as instructed, not weigh the truth. That judgment belongs elsewhere.”

  “And if the task demanded harm on a false premise. What then?”

  “Then I’d confirm my orders and proceed as instructed, trusting the one giving them to bear the weight of that truth.”

  Caedern didn’t press, only leaned back, fingers tapping the armrest once, “mmm. That’s the lesson then. Clear enough.”

  She caught the quick flick of Tiran’s gaze, assessing, before he looked away. Caustic’s pen had stilled entirely.

  Then Caedern’s eyes slid past her, idly scanning the far wall. Waiting.

  “Now...” His head tilted, a smile that wasn’t warm, “tell me about your... off-record exchange with the subject. No pressure. It’s off record. You have the right.”

  A slow inhale from Tiran. A pen rolling once under Caustic’s fingers, caught before it could fall.

  Writ kept her face still. Questions without pressure were the ones that crushed hardest.

  “I asked if there’d ever been a variant of the cure meant to affect a person’s will. Mainly to confirm your claim about what I drank.”

  “And his answer?”

  “He said he’d been asked to research it but refused. Then implied you found someone else who would. Thus confirming its existence.”

  A low hum from Caedern, tinged with amusement.

  “Do you want me to mention his question?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “He asked me, if you gave the order to end him, to make it fast.”

  Another hum. Caustic’s pen scratched a longer note than before.

  “I told him I couldn’t promise. But if it was my blade, I would.”

  “So you told him he’d only die if it was by your hand. That’s a... specific caveat.”

  “I told him if it was by my hand, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “Was that mercy... or a promise you intended to keep?”

  “That’s where the if comes from. I didn’t promise him anything.”

  “If the choice was truly yours. If you had the power to make his verdict. Would you have followed through?”

  She didn’t answer immediately.

  “That was beyond my trained scope. I wasn’t given enough information to pass the verdict.”

  A pause, “what I can be sure of is that if my next instruction is to do it, I’ll do it exactly how you wish. Even if it means prolonging his death and taking back my word.”

  “You’d retract your own words, even to someone you were about to kill.”

  “If my orders required it.”

  “That’s obedience. Or convenience. Which one?”

  “It wouldn’t matter.”

  Caustic’s pen paused mid-line, then resumed.

  “If it doesn’t matter,” Caedern said, “perhaps you can’t be trusted with a promise at all.”

  Another trap. He wanted me to defend herself, to prove her value through his frame.

  Her fingers flexed once beside her, “we’re only bound to promises we make for the Accord. We’re allowed to lie, to give false promises, to outsiders. That’s what you taught us.”

  “Then the subject was an outsider?”

  “You become an outsider the moment you’re suspected of not aligning with the Accord’s view.”

  A beat. “Just like you view me.”

  The faint curl of his mouth. Satisfaction, or just amusement at being read.

  Caustic silently let out a long breath. Tiran slightly tilted his head.

  “Then let’s hope your next instructions leave no room for ‘ifs.’”

  A quiet settled over the table, the kind of silence that filled the space between thoughts.

  Tiran’s gaze swept the table, “any other questions?”

  Caedern leaned back slightly, one brow ticking up, “no.”

  Caustic tapped her pen against the margin, then set it down, “none.”

  The silence lingered before Tiran inclined his head toward Writ.

  “You’re dismissed. Caustic will escort you to the prep room and brief you on the next target. The rule’s the same as your previous preparation.”

  His tone was even, but his eyes stayed on her long enough for it to feel like a measure, “you’ll be in the room tomorrow at zero eight thirty hours.”

  She nodded once.

  Caustic’s pen returned to the page for one last stroke, the sound small but final. Then she rose and walked to the door.

  Writ followed.

  The door closed behind them, sealing the meeting’s air inside. Writ let a long breath out, not minding Caustic just ahead of her.

  He exhaled once, something between a chuckle and a sigh. She didn’t answer.

  They walked the corridor in silence, each keeping to their own thoughts.

  Another task survived.

  The next one would come soon enough.

  And calm was never part of the bargain.