But after Kion’s appearance... after her promise that they would talk. After Kion's sudden human appearance. That suddenly felt impossible. By the time evening came, her mind would be too crowded, too restless to hold the thread of a report together.
The feeling still lingered. Her shock from how he's a fairy before a blink then a human after. His arms circling her, engulfed her with warmth. His breath tingling her hair.
It's too distracting. And it will distract her even more when Kion finally come tonight.
So she shook her head, placed his coin pouch on her desk, and pushed the thought aside. Sitting back down, she pulled the folder toward her.
Two slips of paper greeted her. Small squares tucked neatly inside.
Good luck.
Her eyes lingered on the words far longer than she intended.
Two copies. The same hand, the same plain phrasing.
First this... and then Caedern’s whispered offer, its threat hidden in courtesy. Both pressed too close. Too personal to be brushed off as routine.
If they were tests, they were not the same kind as the grade-four trial. Not something sanctioned, agreed upon by the three above her. These smelled of private motives. A different sort of trial altogether.
Her thoughts snagged on Caustic.
He had never felt hostile. Not when he walked her through Tenzurah ruins, nor when he pressed questions about the traces of magical creatures in her notes. He had only ever seemed like someone doing his job, trying to keep his footing in the same merciless current she was caught in. A survivor. A functionary trying to belong. Even his silences, his judgment, were the reflexes of a Black Quill.
And then he shifted. After that report, his stance softened, almost imperceptibly. It was as if she had proven something, earned not just his acknowledgment, but a trace of sympathy. Another shift Writ couldn’t be certain of, yet she felt its weight.
Even earlier today, when he’d pressed the file into her hands, his eyes had held no sharpness. Only frankness. His touch on her shoulder had felt less like authority, more like encouragement. A rare breath of fresh air inside these suffocating walls.
Which was why the slips troubled her more.
Two good lucks. Not an accident, not a decoration. Too deliberate, too bare.
What did they mean?
If it was a message, she couldn’t decipher it. The duplication made it feel staged. Planted for her to find. And yet not for her alone. The files passed through many hands. Nothing in them was private. Was that the point? A reminder that even the smallest word could be entered into the record?
But it didn’t feel that way.
If it were meant as reassurance, why hadn’t he said it aloud again? Why erase his voice, the barely-there warmth of that first time? Spoken kindness vanished into the air. The written kind lingered, traceable, inescapable.
So why leave it here? Why now?
The uncertainty curled in her chest. Her fingers tightened around the slips, searching for a hidden layer. Was there magic in them? A coded message?
She closed her eyes and reached out, probing the faint traces of mana. Nothing. Only paper, plain and inert.
She rose from the chair, carried the notes to the window, and pulled back the curtain. Sunlight washed across them. They revealed nothing.
She carried them next to the bathroom, lit a candle, and hovered the slips over the flame. Wax softened, smoke coiled upward, but the paper held no secrets.
Burning might reveal more. But which one? Which should be kept, which destroyed? Or both, together, in sequence?
No anchor answered her. Only the silence of two identical words that were no longer identical at all.
At last she blew out the candle and returned them to the drawer, laying them aside.
She would ask Kion later. If anyone could sense a trace she missed, it was him. Magic blood was keener to such things. Perhaps he could give her a lead. Perhaps he could tell her about her Tenzurah notebook too, the one Caustic had questioned, still tainted by traces of mana she hadn’t placed there.
Two more questions for the evening. Two more reasons to keep the promise of a meeting.
Which meant she needed to finish this now.
She sat again, drew her pen, and forced herself into order. Pushed aside the circling queue of doubts. Sorted her points, mapped her outline. Built the scaffolding of a report she could later refine.
But the two slips remained within reach, tugging at her focus every time she drew a line. And beneath them, Caedern’s voice lingered. Soft, coaxing, a shadow of a bargain.
Both of them pulled at her in different directions. Both hinted at shifts she couldn’t name.
She forced the nib forward, letter by letter. Words turned into lines, lines into paragraphs, until daylight thinned, the horizon deepening into the same hour she both dreaded and awaited.
Caustic Ink's POV
Private Boudoir, Othvarn Manor, Bronze Concord
The room smelled faintly of polished wood and lavender polish, a scent meant more for visitors than work. Sunlight slanted through tall windows, pooling across the marble floor in lazy, warm patterns. Velvet drapes framed the glass, their heavy folds slightly askew as if recently opened, catching the light in muted gold. Above, the crystal chandelier reflected tiny fractured rainbows through the dust clinging to its facets. It was beautiful. Too beautiful for work, too soft for strategy.
This was Drenna’s boudoir. Her private drawing room, repurposed into an office. A low mahogany desk had been rolled to the center, stacked with neat piles of paper, half-filled notebooks, and ledgers she always claimed were for accounts. Several chairs lined the wall, but only one had been drawn close. Angled toward a crystal projection hovering mid-air, a flickering record of Silent Writ’s second interrogation.
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Caustic sat alone, the pencil in his hand hovering over a half-written page. Notes sprawled across the paper in tight, controlled scrawl. He watched the projection, watching her. Every micro-shift of posture, every barely perceptible hesitation, every tightening of jaw or narrowing of eyes. She carried exhaustion like armor, precision like a blade. And yet, even here, even in a replay, he felt the weight of her restraint. The razor-edge focus she maintained despite uncertainty and strain.
He scribbled another note, paused, and adjusted the projection with a flick of his wrist. A subtle movement of her hands, a flicker of doubt in her eyes, and his chest tightened as if someone had pressed on it. He knew her rhythm by now, knew the silent code behind each shift and pause. She trusted no one, revealed nothing, yet even in silence, she spoke volumes.
A soft hum of life threaded through the mansion beyond. Distant voices, a shuffle of feet on polished stone, the faint clatter of a tray being moved somewhere unseen. Outside, the room would seem ordinary, mundane, harmless. But here, with Caustic alone and the projection casting soft, flickering light across his features, it was a space of vigilance, analysis, and quiet interest.
A click of the door broke him from the rhythm of observation. He stood immediately.
Drenna entered with that soft, deliberate grace she always carried, the one that made even movement seem calculated, measured, and yet effortlessly natural. Pious Ink followed, silent as shadow, the only Ink she would never assign away from her. Protean Ink paused at the threshold, bowing briefly before retreating and closing the door behind them.
The dark blue dress Drenna wore shimmered under the chandelier’s fractured light, every fold and line deliberately luxurious, every detail radiating the poise of a noble lady. It was an image Caustic was uncomfortably familiar with. The woman of power and poise she allowed the world to see. Utterly different from the sharp, knee-length funeral dress she wore on Accord grounds.
Drenna’s gaze flicked toward him, but she did not stop, walking instead toward the bedroom at the far end of the boudoir. Her voice, smooth and soft, barely carried across the room, “this morning’s recording, Caus?”
“Yes,” he replied, returning to his seat, keeping his tone even, “Silent Writ against Peripheral, 936275.”
“I’ll see to it after I’m changed,” she flicked her hand lightly, dismissive but polite.
Pious opened the bedroom door, and the two of them entered.
“I need something comfortable, Pia,” Drenna added from inside.
The door closed softly behind them. The room felt emptier than it had a moment ago, though no one had left. It was just the absence of her presence. He resumed his quiet observation, tracing the projection’s flickering light with a gaze that was part analysis, part habit, part something closer to worry.
He hadn’t added more than a line or two to his notes when Drenna emerged, moving with that fluid grace that made her seem both purposeful and effortless.
The lime green dress clung just enough to suggest elegance without weight, designed for movement rather than show. He didn’t look up at first, didn’t need to, but felt the air shift around him as she approached.
He stayed seated. She didn’t mind. She merely eased herself down beside him, sliding into the chair with the same quiet authority she carried everywhere.
The scar across her cheek caught the light from his angle. A faint reminder of a past she carried silently, yet without shame.
Pious moved like a shadow, stepping to the door to retrieve the tray that had been left outside. A polished pitcher of iced lemonade, three glasses. She poured with the precision of someone trained in more than etiquette, and served each of them before finally taking a glass for herself and sitting on the chair next to Drenna. The faint clink of ice against crystal punctuated the quiet room.
“How was she?” Drenna asked.
Caustic swirled the liquid in his glass, letting the ice tinkle along the sides. Words didn’t come easily. He wanted measured honesty, not a report that sounded rehearsed.
“As expected... she clearly did her best to complete the task, and somehow managed to cut deep enough with the limited information she was given,” he said at last.
Drenna drained half her glass in one gulp, “does she remind you of yourself?”
“...Yes,” he admitted, voice low, “very much so.”
Drenna leaned forward, “I heard you gave her some hint.”
“More like encouragement,” Caustic replied, “I won’t be able to give the last one personally. So I doubled it yesterday.”
He set the glass down, letting his gaze drift to the softly flickering projection of Writ. Even in its paused and replayed form, she carried that sharp edge, that careful precision.
“You made sure the other prep room monitor stayed shut, hadn’t you?” Drenna asked.
“He’s ours. He won’t tell a soul,” Caustic said, adjusting the angle of his chair to watch her expression, “also, I took it when she left, kept it safe, and put it back exactly where it had been before she came back. No one will notice a thing.”
“Good. Play it clean. Not like you directly told her what’s next. Not against any rule,” she said.
“Not like the judge stayed on script either,” Caustic muttered, watching her eyes flick to him, “he bent the rule right in front of me.”
“In front of you? Huge balls he’s got. What did he do?”
Caustic lifted the glass again, letting the ice clink, “Writ asked this morning if the subject was confined in Branholt or Nexus. The judge answered.”
“And his price?”
“An answer from her, saved for later.”
“That’s actually quite mild, coming from him.”
Caustic hesitated, swirling the drink, “except... he whispered something else after the subject returned. Too close, too low. We couldn’t hear it. Later, once she was dismissed but hadn't left the room, he warned about a ‘last chance.’ She asked the price, and he mentioned 'a yes for a future offer'.”
“Tell me she’s sane enough not to take that.”
“She refused instantly. Left immediately after declining to accompany him for another session. He offered the same company in the first one.”
Drenna’s lips pressed together, “...he’s all smitten. Poor Tiran.”
“At least she refused,” Pious added softly, “a good head on her neck.”
Drenna rubbed her temple, exhaling, “yeah. Whatever that skunk planned will at least annoy Tiran. I’d rather not mediate between them. That would give me a prolonged migraine.”
Caustic chuckled. Pious joined in, soft but amused.
“Let’s hope Writ wasn’t desperate enough to resort to that. I’m pretty sure you’d toss that mediation case to me when it happened,” Caustic said, “no thanks.”
“Aren't you the best at this though?” Pious asked, holding back laughter.
“Nope. Go away, Pia.”
“Make me.”
“Yup. That’s your case if it happens. Don’t even bother me with it,” Drenna said.
“Oh no, I’m so afraid,” Caustic deadpanned.
The three of them laughed, a rare and unguarded sound that seemed to ripple against the walls, small and fleeting.
When it faded, Caustic cleared his throat, “will you handle the report tomorrow?”
“No, you go. I still have to tie loose ends from the commemorative charity. I’m cutting it short. That skunk must’ve scheduled the sessions intentionally so I couldn’t come,” Drenna replied, tilting her head back against the chair.
“Yeah, he must’ve known it’s the annual event for the late lady of the house,” Pious added, “must be intentional.”
“Can’t be helped. He’s got Halve’s backing. I can already see his smug grin when I return,” Drenna said.
“That’s just how he is. Pity we can’t move without him. Interrogations have to go through Judge Division,” Caustic said, setting his glass down.
“Shitty bureaucracy, indeed,” Drenna muttered.
“So I’ll go alone again tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Have fun meeting that skunk,” Drenna said, her voice softening.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Caustic rolled his eyes.
Pious chuckled.
Caustic snapped back, “sounds like Pia’s interested, though. She told me she missed him. She should go instead.”
“You wish,” Pious replied with a grin.
“Since you want to see him that bad, we should switch. I can handle Pia’s task just fine,” Caustic flashed a grin of his own.
“No can do. Your clothing sense sucks. Our princess would end up mocked for years,” Pious retorted, “you can’t even fix the veil.”
Caustic threw up his arms, “fine, fine, I yield. Guess I’m meeting the skunk tomorrow. Yay. I’m thrilled.”
“Consider it an honor,” Pious said with exaggerated gesture, “when else do you get to sit with the big shots?”
“I’d rather stand, thanks.”
Their laughter rose and fell, filling the room, easing some of the edge from earlier talk.
When it quieted, Caustic leaned back, gaze flicking to the projection once more. The mansion’s low hum pressed around them, distant yet protective, like a wall between them and the world outside.
For a fleeting moment, he let gratitude slip in. After so much isolation, endless rules and cages, Drenna had found him. Included him.
To the world, she was a poised noblewoman. But the faint mark along her cheek, now clear without her usual makeup, hinted at the Black Quill lurking beneath the polished exterior, a force few could claim to understand.
She was the only reason he could still feel this small warmth without it spilling beyond the walls. Something he silently wished Silent Writ could experience before she shattered beyond repair.
And for the briefest moment, sitting there in the soft light with Pious quietly present and Drenna nearby, he felt almost... normal. Almost free.