Mercer talked for nearly an hour, laying out everything from the council chamber and the blade to waking up gasping on a cold floor, the Ledger's voice and its list of names, every debt collected and every choice made throughout two years of careful rebuilding. Nobody interrupted him. The fire in Elena's hearth burned low while he spoke, and by the time he finished, it had nearly gone out entirely.
Silence followed, long enough that Mercer felt his chest tighten with genuine fear for the first time since beginning the explanation.
Keston spoke first, his voice unsteady. "That explains the letter. From your mother, all those years ago. You knew things no twenty-four-year-old should have known."
"I knew things a thirty-nine-year-old who'd already lived through this city's politics once be
