Wren entered Caelum’s office at 1:12 on Sunday afternoon without being summoned.
The choice registered before the bond did.
For weeks, every visit to the administrative wing had begun with someone else’s decision: a formal request, a logistics review, a security relocation, an access dispute. Today she carried the revised representation proposal under one arm and the logging-compound route beneath it, concealed inside an ordinary facilities folder.
She needed the north terminal, a door that locked, and three uninterrupted hours.
Caelum looked up from the council calendar.
No surprise reached his face, but his pen stopped halfway through a line.
“I need the terminal,” Wren said. “The door closed. No visitors unless the building is burning.”
“Use it.”
He returned to the document in f
