The service alcove lay behind a wall of linen cupboards.
Nia examined the small brass terminal and sighed. “Nothing good has ever happened behind institutional towels.”
Thorne gave her a look.
“I stand by the statement.”
Aurelia stood between Azalea and her grandfather. The others remained beyond a chalk boundary: Voss, Thorne, Rafael, and an independent court recorder summoned by the King.
Aurelia had insisted on the recorder.
If Evelyn spoke again, her existence would not depend on whether powerful people found Aurelia convincing.
Alessandro turned the terminal’s dial. Light gathered between two copper rods, thin as a soap film.
The corridor beyond appeared gradually.
Black water covered the floor. Lamps burned beneath it without going out. At the far end, Evelyn Baptiste stood with one hand on a wheel set into the wall.
Her braids had been gathered away from a face carved by exhaustion. She looked older than the photograph in her book, but not twenty-three years older.
Voss took a breath. “Evelyn.”
The woman’s eyes closed.
“Selene.”
The recorder’s pen began moving.
* * *
“The holding ward slows physical change,” Evelyn said. “Not thought. I don’t know how many years it’s been.”
“Twenty-three,” Voss told her.
Evelyn’s hand tightened on the wheel. No one rushed to fill the silence that followed.
At last she asked, “My sister?”
“We’ll find her,” Voss said. “We’ll tell her you’re alive.”
Evelyn bowed her head. Water moved around her legs.
“The pressure caught my sleeve when I reached through the window,” she said. “I had to get back to the wheel. I didn’t know whether you’d seen the message.”
“We saw,” Aurelia told her.
“I documented the source of the foundation wards. They were designed to receive voluntary contributions from trained adults. Small amounts, returned after the strain passed.”
Aurelia listened to the echo of water behind her voice.
“Then someone changed the return.”
Evelyn nodded. “Scholarships. Clinical placements. Emergency consent forms. People signed documents they thought gave permission for one procedure. The council recorded them as permanent donors.”
“Who?” Thorne asked.
“Registrar Soren Hale authenticated the transfers.”
The recorder’s pen scratched sharply across the paper.
“He was here twenty-three years ago?” Rafael asked.
“A mage. He is older than he looks.” Evelyn’s gaze moved to Aurelia. “Some of the people who challenged him were placed in the ward between the foundations and the mountain fault. I went in to retrieve evidence. He sealed the exit and registered my signature as its living anchor.”
Aurelia looked at the wheel beneath her hand.
“If you let go?”
“The old pressure enters the occupied buildings. I found a way to hold it.”
For twenty-three years.
Aurelia had no language large enough for that.
“Orlan was siphoning the upper wards,” Evelyn continued. “He wanted a source strong enough to free him from Hale’s permissions. I saw pieces of it when the new listening line opened.”
“Are the others still here?” Azalea asked, looking beyond the woman.
“Some were released after treatment. Some were transferred elsewhere. I only know the names in my register. Hale separated the records so no one person could account for everyone.”
Alessandro’s mouth tightened. Saving Evelyn would begin the work, not finish it.
“And the red moon?” Aurelia asked.
Evelyn studied the sisters.
“Concordant twins are rare. A vessel who can conduct several elements, an anchor who can steady living magic. Neither role has anything to do with superiority. The old ward network crossed the royal territory. When you were born, both signatures registered through it.”
“Across a hundred miles?”
“During that lunar alignment, yes. For a few moments I thought someone had opened a door. I struck the warning pipe three times.”
Voss covered her mouth.
“The water in the basin,” she whispered.
“An overflow response,” Alessandro said. “The network felt the new connection.”
Aurelia’s birthmark burned. Evelyn saw her wince.
“The crescent?”
“Only mine.”
“It marks the vessel in the cases I studied. It isn’t a summons, child. No mark makes your life public property.”
Aurelia had not realized how badly she needed to hear that.
* * *
The court recorder asked Evelyn to state her full name, date of birth, and the circumstances of her confinement.
She did.
Aurelia also asked about the page cut from the archive volume. Evelyn said it contained her instructions for isolating a witness channel from the foundation’s record controls. She had sent a copy to a colleague before her confinement; someone had removed the academy’s copy afterward.
The recorder sealed the statement in front of them.
Then the film between the rods shivered.
Evelyn looked over her shoulder. “You have to close the line.”
“What’s happening?” Voss asked.
“The return is being redirected.”
Water surged through the distant corridor. Evelyn braced against the wheel, and Aurelia felt the force arrive at the terminal like breath against her face.
A voice spoke from somewhere beyond Evelyn.
“Dr. Baptiste. You have visitors.”
Hale’s voice was gentle. Almost regretful.
Aurelia had heard it once during a council address. Her memory supplied the image instantly: a slender man beside her father’s throne, sorting papers with immaculate hands.
“Disconnect,” Alessandro ordered.
Rafael reached for the lever. It would not move.
Silver light climbed the chalk boundary.
Evelyn turned toward them. “Don’t feed it!”
Aurelia had already lifted her hand. She lowered it, heart hammering.
Not more power.
She looked at the terminal. Brass contacts. Copper coil. A physical connection.
“Nia. The coil.”
Nia pulled insulated cutters from her pocket.
Thorne stared. “Why do you have those?”
“Because I attend this academy.”
She cut the wire.
The film collapsed.
Silence struck the room.
Then the recorder looked down at his sealed statement.
The wax remained intact.
Inside it, the paper had gone blank.