Morning brought fog thick enough to erase the mountains.
The academy remained closed. Breakfast trays arrived at residence doors. In the infirmary, Voss permitted Aurelia to walk the length of the ward, provided she did not mistake walking for permission to investigate anything underneath it.
Nia offered to embroider that instruction on a pillow.
Alessandro and Rafael worked at a table covered in copied plans. Thorne coordinated the evacuation of the lower buildings. The King requested an emergency judicial hearing and was told the transfer could not be stayed on the strength of an unrecorded apparition.
Aurelia listened while she buttoned her cardigan.
“Then we record her.”
Their father put the response in writing as a preliminary challenge. A judge would need either a person safely outside the ward or evidence the foundation could not alter; he would not stake Evelyn’s rescue on a hearing that might come too late.
Her grandfather looked up. “First, we work out how to do it without exposing you to the channel.”
That mattered. Someone could need her help without owning the right to take it.
* * *
Her mother arrived carrying no flowers.
She stood in the doorway with her coat still on, elegant braids gathered at the nape of her neck. Aurelia saw her own cheekbones, her own eyes, and the resemblance hurt more than she had expected.
Azalea crossed the room first.
The queen held her for a long time. Then she looked toward Aurelia.
There were tears in her eyes.
Aurelia waited for them to become something she would be expected to soothe.
Instead, her mother wiped her face and asked, “May I sit with you?”
Aurelia nodded.
Her grandmother withdrew to the adjoining room. Not far. Just enough.
“I kept the drawings you sent,” her mother said.
Aurelia looked at her hands.
“I remember sending them.”
“I should have answered them.”
“Yes.”
The queen swallowed. “I told myself you had everything you needed. I was ashamed that being away from court seemed to suit you better than being with us. Then too much time passed, and I made my shame another reason not to come.”
Aurelia’s chest tightened.
“Did you think I was happy?”
“I thought I had lost the right to ask.”
“So you stopped asking.”
“Yes.”
The answer was not enough. It was, at least, an answer about her mother’s choices rather than Aurelia’s supposed needs.
“Grandmother did my hair every Sunday,” Aurelia said. “I used to tell her not to start until afternoon. In case you came.”
Her mother pressed her lips together. Tears slipped down her face, but she did not reach for Aurelia.
“I’m sorry.”
Aurelia looked at the window until the burning in her throat eased.
“I don’t want to forgive you because you’re crying.”
“You don’t have to.”
They sat in painful silence. Then her mother placed a paper bag on the table.
“Your grandmother told me you like the ginger biscuits from the station bakery. I brought them. She also said not to guess what you like when I can ask.”
For the first time, Aurelia looked directly at her.
“That would be a start.”
* * *
Seraphine asked to see Aurelia shortly before noon.
She was not allowed past Thorne without an escort. When she entered Voss’s office, her braid had been redone too tightly, pulling at her temples. She carried a folded sheet.
“Orlan gave me this before the assessment.”
Aurelia remained seated. “Why didn’t you hand it over yesterday?”
“I was frightened.”
“Of being hurt?”
Seraphine’s mouth tightened. “Of what it would look like.”
Nia leaned against the door. “Always reassuring when the truth needs better lighting.”
The sheet was an assessment addendum authorizing an old basin for demonstration use. Seraphine’s signature appeared beneath Orlan’s.
“What did you do?” Aurelia asked.
“I certified that it had been replaced.”
“Knowing it hadn’t?”
Seraphine nodded.
The room went quiet.
“He said the old calibration would make your control look less impressive. I thought you would lose your advanced placement.”
Aurelia remembered the stone flying toward Azalea.
“You thought that would be acceptable.”
“Yes.” Seraphine’s voice shook. “I didn’t know he would hurt anyone.”
“That changes what you intended. It doesn’t change what you helped him do.”
“I know.”
Voss took the sheet. “You will give this statement to the independent investigators.”
Seraphine nodded again. At the door, she looked toward Cassian, who had been called as a witness.
He did not look away from her. He did not offer comfort either.
After she left, Aurelia realized her hands were shaking.
Cassian pulled a chair closer, then stopped.
“Would you rather I went?”
“No.”
The word surprised them both.
He sat without filling the silence.
* * *
By late afternoon they had a way to reach the witness line without using the broken court.
Rafael had installed a second contact terminal in a locked service alcove. The conduit at the court had been its probe. A copper coil linked the terminal to the old foundation return.
Alessandro would open it. Voss would monitor Aurelia’s pulse. Azalea would remain beside her. No one would enter the lower structure.
At least, that was the plan.
Before they moved, Isadora checked the skin at the base of Aurelia’s neck. The little crescent was faintly red.
“You should have told us it hurt.”
“I thought it was the collar.”
“Do you believe that?”
Aurelia looked down.
Her grandmother touched her cheek. “We won’t use you as a key.”
Across the room, her father heard.
“If it comes to that,” he said, “we stop.”
Aurelia wanted to believe promises could be made more durable by saying them in front of witnesses.
This time, she would find out.