The message did not come through official channels.
That was the first sign.
No sigil flared. No ward protested. No herald announced its arrival. It simply appeared—nested inside a minor trade ledger, encoded so cleanly that the system accepted it as routine.
Which meant someone, somewhere, understood the lattice better than the council did.
The Watcher noticed immediately.
It did not block the message.
It flagged it.
That alone marked a deviation.
⸻
Seraphina felt the intrusion as she crossed the eastern gallery.
Not threat.
Attention.
She stopped, fingers brushing the cool stone of a column. The pressure of the Watcher hovered—alert, tight, uncertain.
“They’re careful,” she murmured. “Whoever this is.”
The ledger in her satchel warmed.
She hadn’t opened it yet.
She didn’t
