… ✦ …
Sophie found the Ironmoor servant. And he's terrified.
She told me in the carriage on the way to Saltford, her voice low and even, like she was reporting a weather change. She'd spent three weeks pulling at threads … market stalls, stable hands, courier routes … following the movement of one man until she had a name, a face, and a time.
Aldric. Former household staff, Ironmoor pack. Currently renting a back room above a tannery on the edge of town, which meant the smell reached us before the building did.
"He agreed to come," Sophie said. "I promised him Academy protection."
"Do we have the authority to promise that?"
She looked out the window. "Not technically."
I didn't argue. We were well past the point where technicalities mattered.
He was already at the meeting point whe
