Maren’s message arrived the following morning.
Short, in her characteristic style, all information and no padding: New Hollow Court leadership is one person. Not a faction. An individual who reorganized the remaining members under a single authority structure in seven days. I have a name. It will not mean anything to you. It means everything to the archive. Ask Verath about Councillor Aine.
I read the message twice.
Then I went to find Caelan.
He was in the lower library when I reached it, standing at the bridge with the particular stillness of someone who had been here for a while thinking, and the fact that he came here to think felt like one of those small things that said something large about what the castle had become for both of us.
He read the message.
His face did not change
