The curtain stirred in the draft, slanting sunlight across his face in a pale wash. He hadn’t taken the bed or even reached for his bed-pillow, just curled himself against the wooden ledge with the moss-stuffed cushion he carried everywhere, as if the hard sill suited him better than anything made for comfort.
The latch clicked when she closed the door. He didn’t stir. She lingered a moment, listening to the soft rise and fall of his breath before moving past him.
Her desk was the same as she’d left it. Bare except for the stack of used pages and the scuffed chair tucked underneath. She slid the chair out carefully, not letting the legs scrape the floor, and sat down. Clipboard in hand, she thumbed through the fresh sheets she’d brought back, her eyes drawn again and again to the string of digits hastily written in the margin.
975910.
A Nine. The number sat stark against the page, the way it had against his voice.
Nines weren’t unheard of in Accord, but they were uncommon. Uncomfortable. Children taken at nine or older carried something in them that couldn’t be scraped clean. Residue of outside bonds, memories half-anchored, doubts stitched into their bones. That was what the instructors said. That was what the numbers meant.
She mouthed the chant under her breath, the one that had echoed through every dormitory she’d ever been rotated through.
“Zero are clean slates. Either too functional, or brittle and quick to break.
One and Two trust structure. Reliable in pattern, weak in disruption.
Three and Four are mimics, copying tone and gesture. Effective, but hollow without reference.
Five and Six are switchers. Steady under orders, fragile without command.
Seven and Eight are dual-framed. Inventive under pressure, unstable when left alone.
Nine and above are residue. Carrying hesitation and doubt, sometimes blending, mostly fracturing.
But a Nine who performs too well... means the outside already shaped them. Obedience borrowed, not born.”
Her voice caught on the last line.
She had never known an anomaly Nine. Threshold rarely bothered with them. Easier to erase a past than untangle one already formed. Most wings filled with Ones through Fours, the sweet spots. Predictable, pliant.
And yet Junior had grown so far, so fast. Barely nine months since assignment, and still he held himself steady under interrogation. That was more than rare. It was almost impossible.
Her pen drifted across the edge of the page, idle lines curling into one another. She thought of Tiran, of the correction hall where they’d folded her bones until she fit the mold again. She had survived it, barely, and been remade into something Accord could use.
Salvage, they’d called it. Would they have done the same to him? Even though his first mission was technically completed? Compromised, yes, but not collapsed.
He hadn’t deserted. Not like she once had. That alone should have counted for something.
What happened in those nine months? What shaped him before he ever crossed Accord’s gates?
Her hand stilled. The thought rose before she could stop it. If she could only knock on his door and ask him, this would all be simpler. The picture would sharpen. The numbers would have a face.
But she knew that door would never open to her. Not now. Probably never. And she hated how easily she could accept that certainty.
The sigh that escaped her sounded too loud in the still room. She pressed her fingers against the paper, as if anchoring herself back to the task at hand.
The report. That was all she could afford.
The second session had been easy to recall, the answers burning themselves into her memory, impossible to forget. But this time she needed precision.
Junior’s phrasing, his composure. Everything had to be aligned word for word. She hadn’t prepared enough beforehand. The truth itself had been skewed, twisted at its root.
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Junior had done his part, holding ground with a steadiness that surprised even her. Now she had to do hers.
She bent over the page and began to write, etching his words into ink. Each sentence felt like a knife being set out on a table. Sharp, gleaming, waiting to be picked up and used. Tomorrow, they would hone those knives and turn them back on her. She could already feel it.
Still, she wrote. She would make the account as solid as possible, leave no gap for the blades to slip through. Maybe it would be enough to keep them from touching him again. Maybe.
Her pen paused. She pressed the nib against the paper until a blot spread across the margin. For a heartbeat she closed her eyes.
Behind her, Kion shifted against the wood, a breath catching before settling again into quiet rhythm. That sound steadied her, like a hand brushing her shoulder without ever touching.
She turned the page. Report first. Doubts later.
Kion's POV
Room 203, Binding Post Inn, Brandholt City
He hadn’t been asleep when she came in. Not even close.
The moss pillow beneath his head was damp with the trace of his own breath, but his eyes stayed open to the faintest slit, just enough to watch her cross the room without giving himself away.
He’d followed her all the way back from the Hall. Quiet, careful, a shadow clinging to the glass edges of lamps and stone pillars.
His cloaking spell held firm. No one noticed. He told himself he shouldn’t be doing this, yet every step pulled him along until he found himself outside the chamber doors, listening.
Relief had slipped out in a shaky breath the moment he realized it was only another interrogation. Nothing fatal. Nothing designed to break her outright, not physically.
It was enough to calm him, though it didn’t quiet the tether. The ache of it burned under his ribs, a reminder that not everything she felt could be kept hidden.
He wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to let himself sink this far into Writ’s life.
Veska had reminded him of that just last night. Her words had been as long-winded as any Othvarn toast, her tone sharp with the edge of reason.
Remember why you’re here. Remember the goal. You’re buying time so others can slip free. Don’t tangle yourself where you shouldn’t. Don’t waste it all on her.
The others had nodded. He’d kept silent.
He didn’t like the sound of it.
Maybe the tether didn’t either. Maybe neither of them did.
He didn’t bother separating the two anymore.
Today’s session had been... off.
Kion knew the Silent Writ. The Accord shadow who triggered the Relay Nine trap, who forced Sparklefish to retreat and left a too-bold migrant to die.
He knew her through reports and whispers, through the kind of talk Glitterstorm passed around to weigh risk.
But knowing her as Writ, the Writ tied to him now, made the picture far less simple.
From the way the tether twisted, from the questions being asked, he could guess the truth. The one across from her was a teammate.
That alone made no sense.
Why place her in that seat?
What game did the Accord think they were playing?
He couldn’t shape the answer, only feel the wrongness radiating through her pulse.
The tether told him what her silence tried to smother.
The sting when the boy’s eyes caught on her collar, the way her voice carried sharp, clean lines while her insides scattered raw.
She’d hidden it well. Almost well enough.
Almost.
So when she walked out of the Hall, chin steady, pace measured, he didn’t wait.
He flew ahead, wings cutting soundlessly through corridors, racing to her room before her steps could reach them.
He climbed onto the window ledge where the air was cooler, pulled the moss pillow under his head, and lay back against the stone. The curtain swayed in slow arcs, slanting bars of light over him.
He hadn’t even bothered to drag his bed-pillow here. There hadn’t been time, and it didn’t matter.
It wasn’t difficult to keep still. He’d had enough practice holding motionless in far worse places. The harder part was the reason why.
Because if he greeted her, if he so much as spoke, she’d lift her chin, hide everything he’d just witnessed, bury herself in the mask again.
She’d carry the weight of his concern on top of her own.
He couldn’t let that happen.
She needed time. Space to breathe, to sort through the fragments buzzing in her chest.
Especially after the night before, when panic had eaten at her in silence and he’d been too late to calm her.
Especially after today, when she’d been forced to interrogate one of her own.
For a moment, he let himself imagine the same fate. Sitting across from his teammates.
Maybe Fenwick first. Loud, insufferable Fenwick.
The thought alone made his stomach turn.
Worse was the image of Veska.
She would never answer questions. She’d turn them sharp, twist them back on him until he was the one exposed.
He couldn’t fathom how Writ had walked through that fire and still come out steady.
So he played the part of someone exhausted, drained by the endless pretense of yesterday’s noble gathering, asleep before his body even touched the pillow.
He stayed still, letting the quiet between them settle.
When he shifted, he made the movements deliberate, loud enough to remind her he was here, never enough to draw her away from her papers.
Each time, he felt her pause, that little ripple of awareness through the tether. It steadied him in return.
A presence without demand.
That was all he could offer her now.
If she looked up, she’d see him still there, framed in sunlight.
As if he hadn’t left her side at all. That would be enough.
Until she decided otherwise.
Until she chose to turn toward him.
When that moment came, he’d let his eyes open fully, stage the small lie of waking.
For now, he let her believe the silence belonged only to her.
Thank you for walking beside Writ this far, and for helping her (and me) keep moving through all the noise. We couldn't have reached this point without you!