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I nodded. There was nothing else I could do. She turned toward the door. Every instinct I had told me to follow her. I stopped myself. She had asked for space.

Four years ago, I had watched her walk away and remained where I was. I had wanted to follow her then too.

This time, she had asked me not to.

Aurora was closed. Security across Blackwood had already been increased. She was inside the very perimeter I had spent the morning securing.

I let her go.

The office was very quiet after she left. The chair across from my desk remained empty. For the first time that morning, there was nothing left for me to arrange.

* * *

Victoria

The notice appeared at seven forty-three.

By nine o’clock, the linen contractor knew the sixth floor had closed. By ten, the reagent deliveries had been postponed. By ten thirty, the building had already adjusted itself to the absence.

Institutions are like that. They leave traces of every decision they make.

The notebook where I had recorded Dr. Rossi’s movements remained open in front of me. Alexander had done exactly what I expected. He believed he had removed the routine. He had separated Dr. Rossi from the place he believed had already been targeted.

It changed nothing that mattered to me.

Opportunity is rarely attached to a place. It is attached to a person.

Dr. Rossi would no longer spend her days in the laboratory. She would spend them somewhere else. That was all.

I tore the page tracking Dr. Rossi’s movements from the notebook and closed it. It was no longer needed.

Chapter 27

Emilia

I walked out.

I had no other choice.

Looking back, I remember almost nothing of leaving his office. Marcus was standing somewhere in the corridor. I think he spoke to me. I cannot remember what he said. The elevator came. The doors opened. At some point, I found myself outside.

I walked because I did not know what else to do.

I have always done my best thinking while moving. At Columbia, difficult experiments often ended with long walks through Morningside Park until the problem rearranged itself into something I could understand. Somewhere along the way, Blackwood Hall’s gardens had inherited that same responsibility.

I do not remember deciding to go there.

By the time I looked up, I was standing among the winding paths beneath the autumn trees. The fountain murmured somewhere beyond the hedges. Gardeners were already at work preparing the beds for winter. Blackwood Hall continued around me as it always had.

I paid very little attention to the world beyond my own thoughts. I heard some very small things, like a rustle somewhere behind the hedges and leaves shifting beneath someone’s foot. Under ordinary circumstances, I might have looked up. That morning, I did not. My mind was somewhere else entirely.

At first, I tried to explain it myself. Perhaps there had been some legal reason he could not tell me. Perhaps there were regulations. Perhaps security required silence. Perhaps…

I stopped. No. None of those things explained making executive decisions on my behalf.

In truth, I did not know whether suspending Aurora had been the right decision or the wrong one. How could I? He had never given me the information I would have needed to reach my own conclusion.

Alexander had not asked me to trust his judgment.