Page 36

Viktor looked at him and nodded quickly. “Both serve him.”

“The wards should have flagged each entry point,” Caitlynn said. She leaned forward, her forearms on the table. “I reinforced the northwest anchor after the first breach. The second came through the same corridor.”

“Which tells us the reinforcement didn’t hold,” Kahn said.

“Or he found a way around it.” Caitlynn’s mouth thinned. “The anchor matrix is sound. I’ve checked it twice. If he’s bypassing it, he’s using suppression tech.”

“Marcus had suppression technology,” Viktor said. “If it’s circulating among exile networks, Garrett could have access. Could have created something else.”

Fingers tightened against each other under the table. She kept her face still, her breathing even, her eyes on the map spread between Viktor’s patrol reports.

“He’s smart,” she muttered. “Could have created something.”

“What do we know about his resources?” Kahn asked.

“Limited,” Viktor said. “He was banished with nothing. But that was over twenty years ago. He’s had time.”

She unlocked her fingers. Set her palms flat on the wood.

“He won’t come through the northwest again.”

Viktor’s pen stilled. “Explain.”

“He’s already gotten what he needed from the northwest corridor. He mapped your response time, your patrol rotation, where the coverage thins. The third incursion at the south gate wasn’t a change of strategy. It was confirmation. He’s testing whether you adapt when he moves.”

The room was quiet. She could hear Gideon breathing through his nose.

“You adapted,” she said. “You reinforced the northwest. He expected that. The south gate probe told him how long it takes you to redirect resources after a breach. That’s the number he wanted.”

“How sure are you that you know what he thought?” Gideon’s voice came from the far end of the table.

Sloane looked at him. “Because that’s how he thinks. He doesn’t hit where you’re weak. He hits where you’re strong, watches you double down, then goes where you left open.”

“You’re describing a tactician,” Viktor said.

She raised her shoulders. “He’s a man who spent twenty years nursing a grudge with nothing to do but plan.”

Chris shifted in his chair. She felt it through the bond before she saw it, the subtle reorganization of his attention. He was watching her face.

“Where does he go next?” Kahn asked.

Sloane looked at the map. The compound layout was marked in Viktor’s precise hand, patrol routes drawn in blue, ward anchor points in green. She traced the eastern perimeter with her eyes. The residential block sat behind two layers of wards, flanked by the training grounds to the north and the supply buildings to the south.

“He doesn’t care about the perimeter,” she said. “The perimeter is a distraction. He wants to know how close he can get to the interior without triggering a response.”

“The wards cover the interior,” Caitlynn said.

“The wards cover the interior when they’re at full strength. What happens during a storm? When the barometric pressure drops, when there’s electrical interference, when the humidity affects the resonance of the anchor points?”

Caitlynn went still.

“He’s been watching long enough to learn the pattern,” Sloane said. “If the wards fluctuate with weather conditions, he’ll know when. He’ll know by how much. He’ll have a window, down to the hour.”

Nobody spoke for several seconds.

Viktor picked up his pen and drew a circle around the eastern residential block. “The next low-pressure system moves in Thursday night.”

“Then he’ll probe Thursday night,” Sloane said. “Not a full push. He’ll send someone through the gap, get them close enough to leave a marker. A note. A claw mark. Proof that he was inside.”