He made the decision at the fourth hour.

Not a dramatic moment. He was at the table with the timber correspondence and the coastal watch report and the clay piece with the two lines he had written the night before. He read the two lines. He turned the clay over.

He went to find Ampelos.

________________________________________

Ampelos was at the eastern office. He looked up when Lysander came in.

Lysander sat.

"Yes," he said.

Ampelos set down the correspondence file.

"What does Rethon know that Agamemnon’s network does not know yet," Lysander said.

"The fleet timeline revision. The timber situation. The buffer positions of the three coastlines."

"All accurate."

"Yes."

"What do we want Agamemnon to believe."

Ampelos was quiet for a moment.

"That the timber situation is worse than it is," he said. "That the construction timeline has been extended significantly. That the fleet will not reach operational capacity within any horizon relevant to his planning."

"Which would make him—"

"More patient. If he believes our fleet is years away from presenting a real defensive capacity, he has less urgency to move before it is built."

"And less urgency means more time."

"Yes."

"The information has to be true," Lysander said. "Not invented."

"Yes. Rethon will not carry information he cannot verify through other sources. If we give him something that conflicts with what Agamemnon’s commercial network can independently confirm, we burn the channel and Rethon becomes suspicious."

"So what is true that creates the picture we want."

Ampelos picked up a tablet. He had been thinking about this already — the tablet had notes on it from before Lysander arrived.

"The Thracian timber supply is genuinely interrupted," he said. "The construction of three vessels is genuinely paused. The testing period for the Carian timber varieties will genuinely take two to three months." He looked at the notes. "All of that is true. What is also true, but what Agamemnon’s network does not know, is that the Carian third supplier has already confirmed availability and Daidalos is already working on the smaller vessel adaptation in parallel."

"So we give Rethon the true part and not the other true part."

"Yes. He sends south: the fleet is delayed. The timber situation is serious. The timeline is extended. All accurate. None of it mentioning that we already have three paths to resolution running simultaneously."

"How does Rethon receive this information."

"A conversation. In a room he is likely to be in anyway. Two people discussing the supply situation in terms Rethon will understand and remember accurately." Ampelos looked at him. "You and I have that conversation in the administrative records room. At the hour when Rethon reviews the quarterly accounts — which he still does, despite the missed morning sessions."

"He is still doing the accounts."

"Every third day. Doros confirmed it this morning."

’He asked Doros,’ Lysander thought. ’Before I came here. He had already thought through the mechanism.’

"The conversation needs to sound like something we would not say in front of him."

"Yes. Not secrets — concerns. The kind of thing two people say to each other when they think the room is empty and the door is not fully closed."

"And Rethon hears it."

"And Rethon carries it."

Lysander looked at the tablet with Ampelos’s notes.

"Doros," he said. "He needs to know."

"Yes."

"Not everything. Only that the conversation is deliberate."

"Yes."

________________________________________

Doros was in the administrative records room.

Not reviewing accounts — standing at the window with a document in his hand, reading it in the morning light. He turned when they came in.

Lysander told him simply: in three days, he and Ampelos would have a conversation in this room at the hour when Rethon did the quarterly accounts. The conversation would be deliberate. He needed Doros to ensure Rethon was in the room at that hour and that the door was positioned as it usually was.

Doros listened.

He said: "The door is always left open a third of the way. Rethon sits at the left table. The acoustics carry from the window corner."

"You have thought about this."

"I have worked in this room for twenty-two years," Doros said. "I know what carries."

He turned back to the window.

"Three days," he said.

"Yes."

He did not ask what the conversation would contain. He did not ask why. He turned back to his document.

They went out.

________________________________________

Hector was in the corridor.

Not waiting — passing through. But he slowed when he saw them coming out of the administrative records room together.

He looked at Lysander. Then at Ampelos. Then back at Lysander.

He said nothing.

He kept walking.

’He knows something happened,’ Lysander thought. ’He does not know what. He chose not to ask.’

’Which means he has decided the asking can wait. Or that if it mattered enough he would already have been told.’

’Or that he trusts that whatever it is will come to him when it needs to.’

He caught up to Hector at the corridor junction.

"The training ground," he said. "Tomorrow morning."

Hector looked at him.

"Early," Lysander said.

"Yes," Hector said.

He turned left. Lysander went right.

________________________________________

He found Arsini at the harbor school.

She was inside, in the classroom with the repaired roof junction, reviewing the session records from the morning. She looked up when he came in.

"Rea," she said. "She taught three other children the multiplication method today. Without being asked."

"How."

"She gathered them at the corner table during the break. I watched from the door. She used the same explanation I used when I introduced it. Word for word."

"She heard it once."

"Yes."

He thought about that.

"What do you need from me for her."

Arsini looked at her records.

"Nothing yet," she said. "I am still watching."

She turned a page.

"You look like you made a decision," she said. Not looking up.

He looked at her.

"Yes," he said.

"A difficult one."

"Yes."

She turned another page.

"Good," she said.

He waited for more. There was no more. She was reading the session records.

He went out.

’Good,’ he thought. ’She said good. Not: what was it. Not: was it the right one. Good. Which means she thinks the capacity to make difficult decisions is itself the thing worth noting. Not the content of the decision.’

’Or she trusts the content without needing to know it.’

’Both are possible. Both feel like the same thing from where I am standing.’

He walked back to the palace.

He picked up his shard.