She slides the folio into my hands so smoothly it almost feels like sleight of hand. Matte black. No marking on the outside except a temporary oversight seal already timed to expire.
“Read it somewhere private,” she says. “Soon.”
My fingers tighten around the folio. It’s warmer than I expect, like it’s been under her coat close to her body. The material is stiff and expensive in that bureaucratic way meant to signal seriousness without admitting fear.
“What am I looking for?”
This time her gaze flicks not to the memorial, but to the Senate media risers beyond the plaza where commentators are already arranging their faces into fresh outrage.
“Not who formalized the doctrine,” she says. “Who prepared the ground for it.”
I stare at her.
No.
No, I think immediately. No, because there is already too much blood in this machine. No, because Vol was supposed to be the architect, the terrible clean line the public could follow from action to culpability. No, because broader structures mean broader guilt, and broader guilt means the whole thing stops looking like a corruption and starts looking like governance.
Talis’s expression does not shift, but something in her eyes hardens.
“You understand.”
I hear my own voice a second later. “I understand enough to want to throw this into the sea.”
“Please don’t,” she says. “I only stole it metaphorically.”
“Did you steal it?”
“I acquired it with ethical flexibility.”
Before I can respond, a pair of civilian liaisons pass nearby, deep in conversation about transport windows. Talis steps slightly closer, folding the encounter into something that looks from a distance like solemn condolence.
“Public hearing references to Senate ratification were absent,” she says softly. “Not accidentally.”
I feel my heartbeat in my throat now.
“Why me?”
She does not insult me with sentiment. “Because you follow records farther than institutions prefer.”
Then she inclines her head once and walks away.
Just like that.
No dramatic flourish. No warning music. No one around us noticing that the shape of the entire war may have just shifted inside a matte black folio under my hand.
I stand there for one stunned second too long.
Then Rhyx is back at my side, eyes scanning my face with that immediate unsettling precision of his.
“What happened?”
I look up at him and realize very quickly that I cannot answer that standing beside the memorial wall with cameras still lingering at the perimeter and half the planet chewing its way through reaction feeds.
“Home,” I say.
His posture changes by one degree. Not panic. Readiness.
“Now?”
