Page 152 of Legacy Elite

"We're treating this as an archival question. It isn't." He folds his hands. "This is the first assertion of Fourth House authority in two centuries. Miss Miller was attacked, and she's using that attack to accelerate a claim that would otherwise have proceeded at a considered pace. I think we should be honest about what we're being asked to do — which is acknowledge there's a Fourth House with standing to demand things from us."

"I asked to read what happened to my family," I say.

"Miss Miller—"

"Call that an act, fine. Don't call it a demand for authority."

"With respect, you cannot separate—"

"That's not what she asked for."

Everyone turns.

Soren hasn't moved. His hands are still flat on the table.

"I'm sorry?" the man in grey says.

"You've characterised her request as an assertion of authority. That's not what she asked for, and I was in the room when she asked."

Halvor Soren says, quietly, "Evren."

"House Soren has taken no position on this matter," the woman with the case says, to the room.

"I know," Soren says. "I'm not speaking for my House."

Something in his tone sharpens.

"I was at the Chancellor's table on Friday. I heard the request." He looks along the table. "She was offered relocation and refused it, agreed to four security restrictions she hated, and then asked for the records. She was told to her face that asking would end her position as somebody things merely happen to. She asked anyway. She has not once asked for anything else — not in that room, not in any room I've been in. Argue about redaction if you like. Don't put words in her mouth she's specifically refused to say."

"Evren."

Halvor Soren has turned in his chair.

"If you continue," he says, "the record will reflect that you're speaking personally, contrary to the instruction of your House, and House Soren will state that publicly."

He says it without any heat at all. He says it the way you'd read out a train time.

And I understand, watching it, that this isn't a threat. It's a courtesy. He's telling his son exactly what the next thirty seconds will cost, so that when it costs him, he can't say he didn't know.

The room is completely silent.

Soren doesn't look at me.

"Then make the record accurate," he says.

And keeps going.

He isn't eloquent. He doesn't say one single thing about me as a person, and he never uses the word mate, and if you played the recording to a stranger they'd hear a serious young man correcting a procedural error.

He lays out what I asked for and when. He corrects the order of events twice, because the man in grey has it wrong and the order matters. He points out that treating the attack as a tactic of mine requires believing I arranged to be nearly killed in a forest, and he says it flatly enough that nobody laughs and the man in grey stops talking.

Then he stops.

"Thank you," Wren says, in a completely neutral voice. "That's noted, and noted as personal."

And the meeting moves on to redaction protocols.

That's it. That's the whole thing.