He was holding it together by training. I could feel the seam.
I wanted to put my fingers in it.
“Catalina.”
“Yes.”
His forehead rested against mine for one breath longer than necessary. “I have to leave this room.”
Then he let go.
He stepped back and set his coatstraight with two small adjustments, the gesture precise enough to be ridiculous after the way he had just kissed me.
At the door, he looked back.
The heaviness was still there. It hadn’t left his face entirely. But Rhain, apparently, had no intention of letting tragedy have the last word when flirtation remained available.
“Your virtue is safe,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“No,” he said. “That’s why I’m being impressive.”
Then he winked and left.
I heard him exhale once on the other side of the wood.
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
The photograph was still on the table. Margot in Frogner. Hair pinned. Laughter still on her mouth. Alive.
I wasn’t Margot. Margot had been isolated before she understood what was happening. She had been told to wait while men with seals and titles decided which version of her would survive on paper. I knew better.
I picked up the photograph and put it inside the desk drawer.
Then I opened the phone.
I drafted carefully.
Three sentences in the bureaucratic cadence Davis had trained into me. Status report on the council vote. Status report on the medical-clearance follow-up. One small operational reference three lines from the bottom, framed as ambient context.
A detail an analyst included when she wanted a supervisor to track it without admitting it mattered.
Per the Tuesday council briefing, the eldest elder confirmed the dual-bond question won’t be re-opened before Day 30.
The eldest elder had confirmed no such thing. There had been no Tuesday council briefing on the bond. There would be no Day 30 review. This would be the canary.
If anyone in Davis’s chain repeated it back to me, I would know the sentence had moved. If it appeared in a directive, I would know Davis had read it. If a deputy mentioned Day 30 in a room where no one should’ve known the phrase, I would know the line ran through the compound.
Not proof yet, but a path.
I read the draft twice. Then I sent it. The phone chimed once. Done.
Margot had waited while the record learned how to bury her. I had no intention of giving mine the same courtesy.
Reunion
Catalina
