Damien's POV
Lena spoke with Cassian the following afternoon, in the library, with Bastian positioned within hearing distance and myself deliberately absent, because Lena had asked for the conversation to happen without my presence shaping it, and I had learned, by now, to trust the particular precision of her instincts about which rooms needed me in them and which did not.
Bastian reported back within the hour.
Cassian had not denied the correspondence with Sienna. She had, according to Bastian, seemed almost relieved to have it named aloud rather than continuing to carry it as a secret she was managing alone. She told Lena that the connection had begun before the selection ceremony, initiated by Sienna herself, who had reached out through an intermediary claiming to represent Crestfal
