The next morning began with a prisoner attempting to bite a physician. It was not Father Caldus, unfortunately. The culprit was the boy rescued alongside Mil from the transport carriage, awake for less than a minute before the physician tried to inspect the rope burns circling his wrist. The child responded with the entirely sensible instincts of someone who’d spent far too long being handled by strangers.

He bit him. Or tried to, at least. The physician escaped with a torn sleeve and a badly wounded sense of professional dignity, and I found the whole thing understandable.

"Did he break the skin?" I asked William.

"No, Your Excellency."

"Then the physician will survive."

"He’s said as much himself."

"Excellent. Tell him to stop complaining. His suffering is minor compared to the child’s."

William nodded and made a note of it, the way he made a note of everything.

We stood outside the west safehouse, a quiet property House Konstantin owned under a name dull enough that no respectable person would bother remembering it. The building had once belonged to a retired magistrate with an unfortunate fondness for ornamental fountains, all of which had been removed the moment we took possession. No child needed to recover from trauma under the watchful gaze of marble cherubs relieving themselves into a basin.

Sonomi shadows guarded the residence, the kind who didn’t look like guards until someone made a bad decision near them. Mil had been moved there before dawn along with the two other children, away from the estate and its steadily growing collection of prisoners, records, Jinn power, hidden wards, and people who apparently thought secret bells made for an acceptable hobby.

The children needed quiet. The Elysian Estate, at present, had none to give. It had organization instead, and there was a real difference between the two.

"How is Mil?" I asked.

"Awake," William replied. "He’s eaten half a bowl of porridge."

"Only half?"

"He asked whether Young Lord Spiro had eaten before he’d finish the rest."

I paused at that. "How irritating."

William looked at me.

"Not Mil," I clarified. "The situation."

"Of course, Your Excellency."

Mil was seven years old. He’d been taken from an orphanage that called hard labor responsibility, assessed by adults who measured children purely by their usefulness, nearly placed into a ritual transfer system, and rescued from a carriage in the dark. His first concern after waking up from all of that was whether Spiro had eaten.

Children truly made no sense. They should have been selfish, demanding, loud. They’d earned the right to be all three. Instead they worried about each other.

"Has Spiro sent another note?" I asked.

Something softened in William’s face, in the faint way he seemed to believe I never noticed. "He sent a second one shortly after breakfast. This time he included a drawing of the estate garden and wrote that Mil could pick whichever tree he liked best when he visits."

"Did he draw the fountains?"

"No, Your Excellency. Those were removed years ago."

"Good." The thought of Spiro innocently inviting Mil to admire a child-shaped water feature was too horrible to entertain for even a moment.

"The other two are still wary," William continued. "The girl hasn’t spoken much, but she accepted bread from the housekeeper. The boy asked whether the doors lock from the outside."

I looked toward the safehouse door. It stood open, not wide, just enough for sunlight to reach into the hall.

"No locks," I said.

"There are none."

"Make certain they know that. Let them choose where to sit. Let them walk the garden with a guard nearby, but don’t call it supervision."

"Understood," William said.

Behind those walls were three children who’d spent too long learning that adults arranged their lives like objects placed on a shelf. Mil had his maps to hold onto. The other two had only injuries, fear, and whatever names they’d learned to keep hidden. The foundation needed to happen sooner rather than later, not as an excuse for control, not as another velvet cage dressed up in charitable language, but as an actual structure, a place where children could recover and learn and eventually decide what they wanted to become once someone finally stopped making that decision for them.

I would make it work. Not because I was kind, but because I disliked waste, and people, especially children, were the worst possible thing to waste.

"William," I said, "have Bernard revise the foundation charter. Add a clause. No child sponsored by House Konstantin will be compelled into service, marriage, religious duty, or political attachment without informed consent once they reach a proper age."

He waited a moment before asking, "Even if they wish to serve Young Lord Spiro?"

"Especially then. They may choose that. That’s different. If they want to walk beside him one day, I won’t stop them, but they won’t be handed to him like he’s receiving furniture."

"Of course," William said, and his expression went very still, the way it did when he was trying not to show how much something touched him.

"Also include education," I went on before he could get sentimental about it. "Practical education. Reading, arithmetic, geography, self-defense, basic law, and enough court etiquette that no one tricks them into signing away their lives over tea."

His mouth curved faintly. "A comprehensive curriculum."

"I’m a comprehensive person."

"Indeed."

"Don’t sound amused."

"I would never," he said, though he absolutely was.

A shadow emerged from the side alley and bowed. "Your Excellency. Captain Arthur’s report."

I took the folded paper from him. The writing was blunt and hurried and disciplined, the kind that made it clear Arthur had many virtues, but elegant penmanship wasn’t one of them. Perrin remained secure at Safehouse Three. No movement from the aqueduct. The Dean had tried to invoke temple prayer during the night and been interrupted. Father Caldus had spoken twice, once in his sleep, and once after being told that Lord Keeper Marcellus had been seen entering the Imperial Record Hall before sunrise.

I read that last line again, then folded the report closed.

"How considerate," I murmured.

William glanced at me. "Your Excellency?"

"Marcellus is awake early."

"He may be conducting ordinary duties."

"William. Do you believe that?"

"No."

"Good."

There was no reason for the Lord Keeper to arrive at the record hall before sunrise unless he’d spent the night there, expected some kind of disaster, or been warned that someone was reading through the wrong documents. Considering we’d already stripped Saint Orwen’s hidden chapel room of its ledgers, records, talismans, and anything else that could reasonably be called evidence, the third option seemed the most plausible by far.

Caldus hadn’t yet learned that I’d met Fate beneath the eastern bridge. He didn’t need to. Fear worked better when it had room to imagine things on its own.

"Bring the carriage around," I said.

William nodded and asked, "Are we visiting the archive?"

"Yes."

"Will Lord Abinatha accompany you?"

"Unfortunately."

Abi’s voice drifted over from the carriage behind us. "I heard that, brother."

"That was intentional."

He stepped down wearing a pale violet coat far too expensive for a morning visit to an archive, his hair tied back neatly, his expression bright, almost too bright for someone who’d clearly slept well while the rest of us hadn’t.

"Are we going to meet the Keeper?" he asked.

"We are."

"Will he lie?"

"Most likely."

"Can I frighten him?"

"No."

"Can I look at him in a threatening manner?"

"You do that naturally. I can’t stop you."

His smile widened. "Then I’ll contribute."

"You always say that right before contributing problems."

"Problems are merely events with personality."

"Don’t say that near Bernard. He’ll write it into an administrative memorandum."

Abi considered this with far too much seriousness. "Would it be a good memorandum?"

"No."

"A pity."

The carriage pulled away from the safehouse, and as we crossed into the Capital’s upper district, the city was already waking around us. Bakers threw open their shutters. Merchants swept their doorways. Temple bells rang from towers in the distance, bright and orderly and innocent enough to make my teeth ache.

I disliked bells now. That was unfortunate. They’d been harmless once, decorative, useful for calling servants or irritating horses. Now every peal made me think of red glass, hidden mouths, children told not to answer, and a sound that had reached into the dark for names it had no right to know.

The Imperial Record Hall stood several streets from the palace, pale stone with broad steps and narrow windows, built to look permanent, as though paper and seals could somehow make history obedient. I’d worked around historians in my past life. They couldn’t. History was never obedient. It only waited for people to grow careless.

Bernard was already waiting on the steps when the carriage stopped, looking tired in the way he usually did, having inherited William’s work ethic but none of William’s talent for making sleeplessness look fashionable. A flaw correctable through tea and intimidation.

"Your Excellency," he greeted.

"You look terrible."

"Thank you, Your Excellency."

"That wasn’t praise."

"I understood."

"Good. Report."

Bernard handed me a sealed document. "The imperial authorization arrived an hour ago through the Crown Prince’s private office. It grants House Konstantin review access to all records connected to the lower vault, Saint Orison’s retired holdings, and the pre-coronation medical archives."

I raised a brow. "The Crown Prince moved quickly."

"He included a note."

"Read it."

Bernard hesitated before clearing his throat. "Your Excellency, I’ve sent what authority I can without drawing attention from the wrong people. Please don’t burn down the archive. I’d like some of it left when I need answers."

A smile touched my mouth. The boy was learning.