Page 120 of Zenith Tower

“Force it. Loudly enough that the Council cannot close the room afterward.”

He fastened the case and pulled on his gloves.

“The packet remains with you under Council-seat privilege,” he said. “Read the final annex after I leave. Visitor records may try to reclaim it.”

“What is it?”

“Something added during outer records review. I did not ask for it, and no one at my receiving office admitted knowing it was there.”

“You read it.”

“Yes. The Council’s responses are mine to discuss. The annex exposes the reviewer who certified it, and I will not speak his name in a room the Council chose.”

“Did you send it to the other seats?”

“I copied the packet exactly as I received it.”

“Caspian.”

I waited.

“I do not expect this to alter what you think of me.”

“It does.” I looked at the leather case in his hand, full ofanswers the Council had expected to disappear into his private correspondence. “It doesn’t alter everything.”

“No.”

He nodded once.

The clerk returned to escort him out. My father lifted one hand toward me, stopped, and offered it instead.

I looked at his gloved hand.

Then I stepped past it and put my arms around him.

He went rigid. A moment later, his free hand settled between my shoulders.

I had not forgiven him. I held on anyway.

When I released him, his composure took longer to return than mine.

“Do something useful with the Ashford name,” I said.

“I intend to.”

He left between the clerk and the two stewards, his cane striking stone until the corridor carried the sound beyond my hearing.

The room felt smaller after he was gone. Gray light still crossed the wall above the silver channels, thin and cold.

At my wrist, Astra’s line sharpened with sudden attention.

I closed my hand over it. She would hear Walkin’s name from me before Marrow had the chance to use it.

First, I opened the packet my father had left behind.

Caspian

The final annex was not listed in the packet’s contents.