Chapter 477: 477. The Starlight Are On My Hands, And I need More To Blackmail This One

"The intelligence needed to reach you before it reached anyone else." Rex said, "That’s true regardless of what else is true."

"And what else is true," Valentina said.

"That there are forty-three dead reincarnators and a relay network that is still operational and a contact inside the Aurelian Compact whose identity you don’t have," Rex said. "And that if the name Celestina Von Starlight reaches the wrong channel before you have time to manage it, it will not stay contained."

"It transforms into an institutional scandal. It raises questions about what the Von Starlight family was aware of and when they knew it."

"It becomes an issue that impacts Elizabeth, Helena, and your grandchildren in ways unrelated to their own actions."

Valentina was very still.

"I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already thought of in the last four minutes," Rex said.

"No," she said quietly. "You’re not."

The silence stretched. Outside, the Convergence Waters were flat and bright in the morning light.

"What do you want?" Valentina said.

It was a direct question, asked by someone who had arrived at the point in a conversation where the pretense of not arriving there had become pricier than the question itself.

Rex stated, "I want the recovery analysis to proceed without interference."

"I need full resource access, the authorization you mentioned, and a duration of months."

"You already have that."

"I want it formalized with your personal authorization, not the institutional one," Rex said. "Your name on it, not the Academy’s."

Valentina looked at him. "That’s a different thing."

"I know," Rex said.

"It means that if the analysis produces anything sensitive, the access chain leads to me directly, not to the institution."

"Yes," Rex said. "This is the appropriate outcome, considering the nature of the analysis."

She absorbed this. "What else?"

"Elizabeth," Rex said. "I want her position at the Academy and her review standing after the Key situation to be protected—not just managed, but fully safeguarded."

"Whatever Celestina’s name eventually produces for the institution should not reach Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth is my daughter," Valentina said, her tone edged with intensity. "I will protect my family, no matter what."

"I know you do," Rex said. "I want it on record that the understanding between us includes that protection explicitly."

"You’re asking me to commit to something that I was going to do anyway."

"I’m asking you to commit to it in a context where the commitment has weight," Rex said. "There’s a difference between a thing someone intends to do and a thing someone has said they will do in exchange for something specific."

Valentina looked at him for a long time. The expression she was wearing was the one Rex associated with people who had been outstanding at their positions for a very long time and had encountered, perhaps for the first time in recent memory, someone who was operating at a level they had not prepared for.

"You are seventeen years old...?" she said.

"Twenty-two," Rex said.

"You came into this institution as an Honor student," she said. "Months ago you were unknown to me except as a name on Helena’s correspondence."

"That’s accurate," Rex said.

"And you are sitting in my office," she said, "having delivered the most significant intelligence the Apostle network has received in a decade, naming a person whose existence I have spent thirty years managing the absence of, and telling me the terms under which you intend to keep this handled."

"I’m telling you the terms under which it stays between us," Rex said. "The intelligence itself goes through standard review. Well, most of it."

"The relay network, known as Solmordia, along with the Valdric consortium, is involved in this process."

"That all goes through channels and produces the operational response it should produce."

"The name doesn’t go through channels."

"The name doesn’t go through channels," Valentina repeated.

"Not yet," Rex said. "Not until you’ve had time to manage what it means."

"Not until the Von Starlight family has had time to prepare for whatever comes when it eventually becomes public."

"Because it will become public eventually, but the difference between it becoming public in three months and in three years is enormous, and you know that."

Valentina was quiet for a long moment. Then she said,

"What are you going to do with it in the meantime?"

"Nothing," Rex said. "I’m going to do the recovery analysis and attend my classes and give you whatever I find that’s relevant to the Legion’s remaining operational structure."

He paused. "I have no interest in burning down the Von Starlight family."

"The people in that family have done nothing to deserve it."

"And you," Valentina said. "What about what you’ve done to position yourself inside that family?"

Rex looked at her with the attention of someone acknowledging a question they consider worth answering.

"Helena is going to have feelings about that when she gets back," he said. "I know that."

"She will," Valentina said flatly.

"And that’s a conversation that will happen," Rex said. "This conversation will occur between Helena and me, rather than being managed from above."

Valentina looked at him with the specific expression of a woman who had, over the course of approximately forty-five minutes, arrived at a position she had not anticipated and was now taking stock of exactly how she had arrived there.

"You’re asking me not to interfere," she said.

"I’m observing that the arrangement we’re building works better if the parts of it stay in their respective lanes," Rex said. "Helena’s relationship with her daughters falls within her area of responsibility."

"The intelligence review is yours. The analysis work is Elizabeth’s and mine."

"And Celestina," Valentina said.

"Celestina is yours," Rex said. "I brought you the name."

"What you do with the name is yours to decide. I’m only telling you that the decision benefits from time, and that I’m in a position to give you that time."

The silence that followed was different from the other silences in the conversation. This silence had the quality of something settling, similar to how a structure stabilizes when its weight is redistributed and the load finds its proper position.

Valentina glanced at the compact document on the desk, then shifted her gaze to the extraction ring that Rex had placed beside it. Finally, she looked at Rex.

"Months, perhaps six months," she stated. "Full resource access is required. Elizabeth must remain protected."

"The name will stay between us until I decide when to reveal it."

"Yes," Rex said.

"And in exchange," she said, "you will provide me with all the information you discover regarding the Legion’s remaining structure."

"Everything. Not just the version you think I need. I want everything."

Rex looked at her.

"Everything that comes through the recovery analysis," he said. "Yes."

Valentina absorbed the precision of that qualifier and said nothing about it, which meant she had registered it and filed it for the category of things she was going to watch for.

"You’re either the most useful student this institution has ever admitted," she said, "or the most complicated problem I’ve had to manage in twenty years."

She paused. "I haven’t decided which."

"I imagine you’ll have a clearer picture in six months," Rex said.

She looked at him one more time, and the expression she wore was the one people wear when they have accepted a situation and are already adapting to it—the pragmatic, forward-facing calculation of someone who had not gotten to where she was by refusing to work with the material available.

"Perhaps we should discuss the future of Aethelgard in relation to those legions and what will happen next for The Underlayer."

"Sure."

’Alright... now that’s done.’