[SERA — POV]
She spent the night with the data chip.
She had a reader she'd assembled herself—she didn't trust the Order's hardware for anything she was keeping off the official channels—and she worked through the files in the pale hours before dawn while Veyrath rain tapped against her apartment window and the city's background hum replaced the silence she couldn't fill with sleep.
Ilara Venn was meticulous. Whatever else she was—former analyst, involuntarily retired, sitting on classified material for five years—she was meticulous. The files were organized with the precision of someone who had expected to need them defensible in a tribunal someday: dates, sources, corroborating documents, cross-references.
Sera read for four hours.
The Architects were not a new faction. They were no
