"Well," a voice said, relaxed and wrong in the small room. "You were the one watching."

Vencian felt the shift under his skin. Lucian's posture stayed steady.

The driver's head tilted, too smooth for a man half-conscious. "I wondered who had the nerve to stand at Gundal's back and pretend to yawn. You hid it well."

Vencian kept his hands loose. "Your man talked."

The borrowed voice clicked its tongue. "No. He didn't."

"You sent him to watch the meeting."

"I send many people places. They don't always know why."

Terin's face twitched under the strain. The voice didn't care. "You're digging into a matter that doesn't concern you. And you're not quick enough to escape the consequences. Keep scratching, and the end won't bother with theatrics."

The lamp swung slightly above them. Vencian waited for the flicker to settle.

"You talk as if you'll get the chance," he said.

"Oh, I'll get-

Vencian watched Terin's mouth shape the next sound. Something in the rhythm snagged at him. The voice pushed through the dying man's throat with far too much ease, far too much talk, as if buying something he could not see.

A cold thought cut in.

There was no reason for this stranger to ramble.

Vencian moved before the next word landed. The sword flashed a short arc, clean and simple. Terin's head fell with a soft thud against the chair's leg. Silence hit the room with a hard edge.

Quenya jerked in the air. "Vencian…?"

"He talked too long," he said. His voice stayed level. "Someone who can use a body from a distance has no reason to hold a conversation. He was up to something. Maybe tracking us. Maybe waiting for something to lock on."

He scanned the space around the corpse. The floor sat plain and dull. The ropes hung loose around the dropped torso. Terin's head lay with his eyes half-open, a faint glaze across the irises.

A twitch rippled under the collar of the dead man's shirt.

Vencian stepped closer.

A small insect slid out from the seam. It moved with slow purpose, worm-thin, striped in blue and white from head to tail. He slid the flat of his blade under it and lifted it into the light. The stripes looked too clean for anything that lived in soil. He had never seen its like.

He looked at Quenya. "We need to leave. This place might be compromised."

Her glow tightened in agreement.

He pulled open the dimensional fold and dragged Terin's body inside by the ropes. Fabric vanished in a slow swallow of color. He held the thought in place. Something had triggered possession at the exact moment Terin tried to reveal more. This timing was no accident. And if the voice truly used distance to reach through bodies, then he had taken too long. Worse, the voice might have tracked him through Terin inside the fold, though that seemed too convenient to trust.

He left the basement and reached the kitchen. A single empty vial waited on the counter. He tapped the worm off the sword into it and sealed the cap. The creature curled once inside, then went still.

Upstairs, the gramox sat on its frame. Vencian removed the glyphsteel with a firm pull. Without it, the device carried nothing that could betray them. Steathil hid any trace a watcher might use.

He opened the fold and tossed the vial and glyphsteel into the dark space.

Then he shaped a new illusion, a face and build that matched none of his earlier ones. The body settled around him, ordinary in every way, built for walking through a street without notice. He left through the safehouse's rear door.

The alley opened toward a narrow lane. He kept his stride calm while Quenya drifted near the roofline, scanning corners and windows. A cart rolled past. A worker shouted at someone across the street. Nothing tracked his steps. Still, he turned twice, cutting through a closed yard and a cramped walkway behind a storehouse.

When he reached the church's shadow, he slowed. Quenya swept a long circle around him, then gave a short nod.

He let the illusion slip. The familiar weight of his own face returned. He stepped out from behind the church's side wall and joined the road toward his mansion, watching every door and every passing coat as he walked.

Vencian reached his room and shut the door with a slow pull of his wrist. The day clung to him in a dull film. He washed his face and arms, letting the cold water clear the last traces of the safehouse from his skin.

Quenya settled on the edge of the desk. Her glow sat low, tired in its own way. "You should rest."

"In a bit." He dried his hands with a clean cloth. "You saw the timing back there. That voice did not show up by chance."

"It felt close," she said. "Closer than before."

He nodded. "Whatever it was doing, it wanted more than a conversation."

She drew her knees to her chest. "It knew too much. More than I like."

He agreed but said nothing. The calm of the mansion's walls helped him focus. He glanced at the gramox on the side table. This one sat upright in its polished cradle, humming with a faint inner light.

A letter waited inside.

He pulled it free and unfolded it. His mother's handwriting carried a familiar grace. She opened with greetings. She wrote about the estate and the shift in weather. She mentioned her health in a cheerful way that told him she had written the line with a small smile. He read each part with a quiet warmth. She wanted him to stay steady. To not overthink things. To eat on time.

The page shifted tone near the end. She told him about the upcoming royal wedding and she trusts him to uphold the family's reputation their. She wrote further that Duke Hadethon Dawnforge had sent her a message. Something important. She did not elaborate and said he should speak with the duke at the royal engagement himself if he wished to know more.

The letter closed with the care she never forgot to give him. He chuckled once, soft and short, then reached for a blank sheet to begin a reply.

His hand paused.

The glyphsteel.

He remembered the piece he had taken from the decoy gramox. There was a chance an unread message still sat in it. He opened his dimensional fold and lifted the glyphsteel from within. The cool weight pressed against his fingers.

He fitted it into the gramox.

The device stirred. Lines of light crawled across the ridges. A blank sheet rose from the slot and the gramox etched a message across it in clean strokes.

Vencian leaned in.

The letter came from the Valemont household.

He felt the words settle in his chest.

The message stated he had passed the interview for the reader post. Two days a week. Start at the appointed hour.

Quenya stared at the page. "You got hired?"

"Apparently."

"But that interview was dreadful."

"Yes."

They looked at the message a moment longer.

A dry smile touched his mouth. The absurdity of the day wrapped itself around this final note like a quiet punchline. He set the letter down and let out a slow breath.

The chapter's weight slipped into the room's stillness. The day had started rough and ended stranger.

He found it almost funny.

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