Vencian dried himself and pulled on clean clothes, moving through the familiar motions with little thought. The bath had done its work—washed off the dust and sweat of the day—but his mind remained cluttered. He crossed to his desk where the gramox sat, its polished surface gleaming faintly in the lamplight.

He inserted the glyphsteel. The mechanism clicked softly as it read the cipher.

No messages. His mother had written a few times since he'd learned about the deal with Duke Hadethon. Her last letter had been brief. The choice, she'd said, was his. She would support him, whatever he decided. That support came with a warning, though. Consequences would follow if he refused.

He removed the glyphsteel and set it aside, reaching instead for the second one. The secretive one.

His fingers found its weight familiar now, the metal cool against his palm. He'd grown used to this ritual. Check one glyphsteel, then the other. Public correspondence first, private second. The order mattered less than the routine itself.

He slid it into the gramox.

One message waited.

Roselys.

'Did you find something during the banquet?'

Their first contact since the engagement. He hadn't thought much of it until now. Four days had passed. Perhaps she'd been busy. Perhaps she'd been waiting to see if he would write first.

He considered the question for a moment, then wrote back. 'Nothing. I found nothing.'

The truth required no embellishment.

He set the glyphsteel down and moved toward the bed. Sleep sounded like a reasonable idea. His body ached from training earlier, and tomorrow would bring more of the same.

The gramox hummed.

He turned back. The glyphsteel glowed faintly, signaling a new message.

Vencian picked it up and read.

'Disappointing, but expected. Public gatherings constrain my methods. I cannot operate at my best in those settings.'

He read the words twice. Her meaning was clear. She had anticipated failure from the start. The engagement had been a poor hunting ground for the kind of investigation they needed. She wasn't blaming him. She wasn't blaming anyone. She was stating a fact.

Vencian understood that tone. It matched his own approach to these things. Accept the outcome, acknowledge the limitations, close the door on fruitless pursuits. Practical. Efficient.

He set the glyphsteel back into the gramox and wrote a reply. 'I agree. The environment was unsuitable. I have nothing further to add on this matter for now.'

Short. Direct. The kind of response that matched hers.

He sent it and removed the glyphsteel from the gramox, placing it carefully in the drawer. The inquiry was finished. They had both acknowledged the failure and moved on.

The room settled into silence again.

He turned toward the bed a second time, taking a few steps before stopping.

Quenya was watching him.

She hadn't spoken. She rarely interrupted when he was focused on something else. But her gaze held a weight he recognized. She had been observing the entire exchange.

Her expression made it clear she had something to say.

"Is that how you intend to leave it?" she asked.

Vencian turned to face her fully. "There's nothing left to pursue. The banquet yielded nothing. No topic left to discuss."

Quenya tilted her head slightly. "You closed it quickly."

She said nothing about Roselys herself. She only noted the speed.

Vencian crossed his arms. "Speed prevents complications. Exams are approaching. There's no reason to linger on a dead end."

"Was it a dead end?" Quenya asked. "Or simply an inconvenient pause?"

"It makes no difference."

Quenya watched him for a moment longer. "You end conversations the same way you end transactions. Cleanly. Decisively. Leaving no space behind."

Vencian frowned. "What does that have to do with this?"

"It has nothing to do with this," Quenya said. "It has to do with people."

She paused, then continued. "Closing something too neatly can leave others unsure whether it was ever open."

Vencian did not respond right away. He moved to the bed and sat on its edge, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight. "If people are unsure, they hesitate. That keeps me visible but untouched."

Quenya accepted that answer. She gave no argument. "They hesitate. Then they stop looking."

The room fell quiet again.

Vencian remained on the bed for a short while, staring at the floor. His thoughts circled back to the exchange with Roselys. Brief. Transactional. Resolved.

He stood and returned to the gramox. His fingers found the secretive glyphsteel in the drawer, and he fitted it back into place. The mechanism clicked softly.

He hesitated, then began composing another message.

He did not ask about the banquet itself. He asked whether her silence during the engagement had been deliberate, or simply enforced by circumstance. He framed it as a question of interpretation. 'I want to know whether I misread your intent.'

The message was sent.

There was a longer pause than before. Vencian did not move away from the gramox this time. The question had been bothering him since that night. Roselys had stood there while Nanis attacked her, saying nothing, doing nothing. He'd stepped in because the spectacle had irritated him. But he'd been confused by her refusal to defend herself.

When the reply arrived, Roselys' response was brief.

'My restraint was deliberate. There was little else I could have done in that setting. Your intervention altered the shape of the exchange, though the outcome remained the same. I hold no criticism of your choice.'

*Why does she sound so formal?*

Vencian acknowledged this with a short response. 'Noted.'

He did not attempt to reframe it again.

The exchange slowed. For a moment, it seemed finished.

The gramox hummed.

Roselys had sent another message.

"I will be difficult to reach in the coming days. Preparations and the academy excursion will occupy me. After that, examinations."

Vencian read it, then replied. 'The timing aligns with my own obligations. Exams come first, followed by the excursion. Several matters have been deferred until after.'

He left it at that.

It was true. Between examinations, academy duties, and the sanctioned excursion, Vencian had deliberately created distance. It gave him a reason to postpone his meeting with Adaorys Dawnforge. Delay, in this case, was easier to justify than refusal. No one could accuse him of avoiding his obligations when the academy schedule itself demanded his attention.

The gramox hummed again after a longer interval.

Roselys' next message arrived.

'Once your exams conclude, I will expect a conversation. Neither immediately, nor publicly. I will tell you then what I intend to ask of you in exchange for the assistance I have already provided, and any I may offer going forward. This is a matter of balance.'

She did not frame it as a threat. She did not frame it as a favor. It simply was.

Vencian read the message carefully. He considered his response, then wrote. 'I understand. I agree to hear your terms after the exams.'

He sent it.

There was no response after that.

He removed the glyphsteel from the gramox and placed it back in the drawer. The device fell silent. The conversation was concluded, deferred by mutual acknowledgment rather than left unresolved.

Vencian extinguished the light and lay down.

The room settled into darkness. The day was over. Tomorrow would bring training, studies, and preparation for exams. The meeting with Adaorys remained in the future, postponed by reasonable necessity. Roselys' terms would wait until after the excursion. The Pentarch investigation had reached a temporary halt.

Nothing had been decided yet. Nothing hung unspoken.

-- -- --

Before dawn, the academy gates stood open.

Iron doors had been pulled wide and fixed in place, their hinges creaking softly in the cold. Lanterns hung from posts along the road beyond, each flame steady but pale, their reach dissolving into a low mist that clung to the ground.

Vencian joined the line of students assembling outside the walls.

Uniform were drawn tight, collars raised, breath visible in short bursts that vanished quickly. The excursion had been announced weeks ago, marked on schedules and repeated in lectures until it became routine. Attendance was expected rather than questioned, and the mood reflected that familiarity.

A faculty escort moved down the line with a ledger, checking names and passing out small travel markers stamped with the academy seal. Another group loaded supplies onto two wagons, crates secured with rope, bedrolls stacked without ceremony.

Students fell into loose clusters shaped by habit more than intention.

Conversation stayed low, dulled by the hour and the knowledge that the walk would be long. No one treated the outing as exceptional.

Quenya drifted close to Vencian's shoulder, her attention angled past the road ahead rather than the gathered group.

"The ground feels older the farther we get from the academy," she said.

Vencian acknowledged it with a brief sound and did not ask her to explain.

The line began to move.

The academy walls receded behind them, stone giving way to packed earth and short grass worn flat by travel. City noise thinned quickly, replaced by the uneven calls of birds stirring in the dark. A senior lecturer walked alongside the wagons and reminded them to observe rather than interfere, and to keep their notes limited to the scope of the field study.

Vencian walked near the middle of the formation.

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