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Kain walks with me to the waiting area Julian indicated and stops at the door.
His hand closes around the back of my neck, fingers curling into the short hair at my nape, and he squeezes once. “Don’t get into any trouble.”
I roll my eyes at him. “What could I possibly do?”
He hesitates, clearly worried, before he turns and follows Julian toward the glass-walled conference room. I can see their destination from my doorway, a clear reminder to be on my best behavior.
Inside the room, I head straight for the binders and lift down the one labeled ‘SENTINEL CLASS — DESIGN NOTES’ in fading marker.
It weighs more than I expected, and I have to hold it with both hands as I head for the couch.
The purple cushion sinks beneath me, and I open the binder on my thighs. The pages inside hold photocopies of handwritten notes, some so crammed with text they’ve been reduced to a gray smear, others clean and spaced with bullet points and underlined headings.
I read the first line.
SENTINEL CORE LOOP: Player declares role → gains access to Ember District → Bartender becomes primary quest giver →
I look around the room. Is the cut romance path someone in this archive? Or would they have pulled that data for the new DLC?
The binder pinches at my legs, so I set it on the side table, next to the charging cable coiled like a sleeping snake.
The monitor’s archive interface glows beside me. I reach for the mouse and scroll.
Directory trees expand and collapse. Patch notes from the game’s early days fill the screen, and I click on a folder labeled “CUT CONTENT — EMBER DISTRICT”. The screen populates with text documents, audio files, and concept sketches.
I scroll two pages and stop.
My eyes drift left.
The conference room wall is a full panel of glass. Kain sits at a table with four other men.
He has his laptop open, the screen angled away from the hallway. The white wall behind him throws his profile into clean relief, his dark hair falling across his forehead the way it does when he’s concentrating.
Julian sits beside him, their shoulders six inches apart, and from this angle, I can see Julian’s knee brushing Kain’s under the table.
Julian leans closer to Kain, his head tilted toward the laptop screen. Julian touches Kain’s arm, just above the wrist, his fingers curling around the fabric of Kain’s sleeve.
The contact is casual. Unremarkable. The kind of touch that happens between colleagues every day in offices across the city.
Julian says something.
Kain responds.
I can’t hear anything, but I can read the shape of his mouth, the slight lift at one corner, the way his chin tilts up a fraction when he’s being charming.
Julian grins in a way that means Kain’s charm has worked.
His hand stays on Kain’s arm.
I turn back to the monitor.
The archive holds fifteen years of the game I have loved longer than most of my adult relationships.
Cut content from the Ember District. The Sentinel’s original recorded lines, from before the actor settled into the character. Design documents with margin notes.
I cannot read a single line of it.
My attention drifts back to the glass.
