The sound is soft.
It feels like closing a door in a burning house.
Neither of us speaks for several seconds.
Then I sit down very carefully, because all the adrenaline has finally burned through and left my bones hollow.
Rhyx reaches across the table and sets his hand over mine.
Warm. Solid. Real.
No speeches.
No attempt to make this noble.
Just contact.
I stare at our hands and say, “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate that there’s more truth and I can’t use it.”
“You are using it.”
I look up sharply. “By doing what. Hoarding it.”
“By preventing it from vanishing,” he says. “That matters.”
The rain deepens outside, soft at first, then steadier, turning the city lights into trembling streaks on the glass.
I think of Talis saying there is always more.
I think of the memorial this morning, the names finally public, the doctrine finally named, and the dangerous stupid relief of believing maybe we had reached the bottom of the lie.
No.
We reached the first floor the public could survive seeing.
I squeeze Rhyx’s hand once and then let go, because if I keep holding on I might actually start crying and I am still not thrilled about doing that over Senate briefing notes.
“I’m not releasing it,” I say.
The sentence sounds formal because I need it to.
Not a feeling. A decision.
Rhyx nods. “All right.”
“I’m keeping the copies.”
“Yes.”
“If anything happens—if they start trying to bury reform, if someone tries to rebuild the doctrine under another name, if the ceasefire goes anyway?—”
“Then you reassess.”
“Yes.”
