Lena's POV
I told Damien that evening.
Not all of it, not the full architecture of what I had been building, because some of it was still provisional and I had learned, in the weeks we had been working together, that Damien responded best to conclusions that were supported rather than suspicions that were dressed in the language of conclusions. He was a man who respected the distinction and who had, on more than one occasion, pushed back on my assumptions until I had shored them up with something solid.
I told him what was supported. The pattern Rourke had identified. Aldric's position and access. The timing of the disruption in relation to the upcoming selection. The specific calculation I had laid out for Tara that morning, that a woman in my position could have been engineered as an
