Chương 67: Chapter 66: What the Wardrobe Heard

The truth does not require your permission to exist. It only requires someone willing to look for it in the right places, at the right time, with the right patience. - From the private journals of Wren Aldas, investigative correspondent, Area 5 He lay awake for a while after getting back to his room. Davan. The name kept turning up nothing useful, the way a word sometimes lost meaning the more you repeated it. He was certain he had encountered it before. But where? He went back through the year methodically.

University. The SDC. Moghli's account on the rooftop. The festival. He stopped. Moghli's account. He hadn't used the name - Kara was almost sure of that. But the dungeon incident had involved a teammate. A teammate who had been mortally wounded inside and brought out too far gone to save. Lucianne, drunk and soft-voiced in the dark, saying I miss Davan in that tone. Could it be? He opened a message to Moghli. Does the name Davan mean anything to you, in the context of what we discussed?

The response came back faster than he expected, given the hour. Where did you hear that name? Someone connected to the dungeon incident, Kara sent. I'll explain more if it's relevant. A pause. It's relevant. Davan Osei was on the University 11 dungeon team. He was the one who passed away from the mortal wounds he received. Before Kara could process this, Moghli continued. Who did you hear it from? Kara looked at Waggy, who had resettled after being briefly disturbed. He thought about how much to say.

Moghli had always been measured, giving information carefully, never pushing for more than was offered. He might not want the full picture. Then he thought about his parents. About Gomot. Moghli was the only person outside of Narak who he could confide in regarding this. He had also provided Kara with the most direct information regarding it. He told Moghli everything.

The party, the late hour, Lucianne in the armchair with the bottle lower than it had been, speaking through the interface to someone she trusted completely. The way she had said the name. What came after. The response took a long time. Long enough to make Kara wonder if he had just made a big mistake. I see. Followed by - Monk had heard something along these lines, a long time ago. Nothing confirmed. No one willing to say anything on record. He aring it directly from her is the best possible source.

Evidence would be needed of course. What are you planning to do? Find out more, Kara sent. Properly. Be careful. If they catch even a hint of it, you will be in a lot of trouble. You should know that. Yes, I know. I will be careful. Alright then. All the best, Moghli sent. And then nothing more. Kara set down the interface and looked at the ceiling. Outside, the castle had gone fully quiet, the last of the party sounds long dissolved. You might be reading a pirated copy.

Look for the official release to support the author. He would have to plan this carefully and thoroughly. He closed his eyes. Three weeks passed. He went about his work. He learned the rhythms of the castle, the patterns of the east wing, the precise calibration of how invisible a person could make themselves through simple consistency. The weekly parties continued - same great hall, same string quartet, same people invited.

The pattern afterward was also the same - Lucianne returning past midnight, slightly drunk, pinging him to return Pip, the low voice through the interface carrying the same unguarded, intimate tone he had heard the first night. He watched. He planned. He prepared. On the fourth party night, he was ready. Pip was asleep on the chair. Waggy was on the bed, watching him closely. Kara took the invisibility suit from the bottom of his pack. He had not used it since the last morning at University.

He put it on and looked down at where his hands were not. He left his door open a precise amount - enough that Pip could leave if she chose, enough that it would look accidental. Then he walked to the east wing. PfP staff with active care responsibilities had access to the rooms of their assigned residents. Standard practice, documented, unremarkable. The door recognised him. He stepped inside. The suite was empty and dark.

He crossed to the wardrobe - a full walk-in, deep enough that the back wall held evening clothes Lucianne clearly never wore - and positioned himself between a rack of coats and a row of hanging garment bags. Away from the nightwear. Away from anything she would need. He settled in and waited. She came in at twenty past midnight. He heard the door, then her footsteps - the slightly imprecise quality of someone managing heels and wine in roughly equal measure.

A lamp went on in the main room, the light reaching faintly under the wardrobe door. Then silence. Then a sound he had not expected. Sobbing. Quiet, controlled, held in for hours and only coming out now because the door was closed and there was no one to see. It lasted perhaps two minutes. Then it stopped, and he heard her move. The wardrobe door opened. She was still in the dress from the party - deep green, formal.

She moved through the wardrobe, reaching for things with the automatic confidence of someone who knew exactly where everything was. She pulled out a nightdress, set it on the small shelf, and began undressing with the unselfconsciousness of someone entirely alone. She was stunning. The warmth arriving in his face made him realize he was staring, mouth partly open, slightly out of breath. He quickly engaged Safe Haven, thanking the stars that she was slightly drunk and deep in her own thoughts.

His breathing levelled. He fixed his gaze on the garment bags to his left and kept it there with considerable effort until the sounds of changing had resolved into the sounds of fabric settling and footsteps retreating. He exhaled very carefully. She returned to the main room, checked the door, checked the window - methodical even half-drunk. Then she settled, and the familiar low cadence of an interface call began. He activated the recording function on his interface. Recording active.

"- worse tonight," she said, without preamble.

"They've set a date. Nothing announced but it's done, it's decided." A pause, listening.

"I know. I've always known. But having a fixed date is different." Silence for a moment.

"Edric is -" She stopped. Started again with a different approach.

"He's fine. He's perfectly, completely fine. He makes sense on paper and he's decent in person and when we're together it's just -" A long pause.

"It's just fine. Everything is just fine." The fire had burned down to almost nothing.

"I keep thinking about how it was with Davan." Her voice dropped.

"How he used to make me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe. How I'd walk into a room and he'd already be looking at me from across it." A sound that broke slightly at the edges.

"Edric looks at me the way you look at something you're glad to have. Davan looked at me like - I don't know. Like I was the most interesting thing in any room he'd ever been in." She was quiet for a long moment.

"I was thinking about that day. In the dungeon." Careful now, the voice of someone picking their way through something sharp.

"I keep going back to it. We'd snuck off - we were always finding reasons to sneak off - and then everything went wrong so fast when the beast came out of nowhere." A pause.

"If it weren't for Ghilim..."

"I know, I know. It was a bit excessive and I kind of feel bad about what happened to him and his family, but how could I possibly explain to anyone why I wasn't wearing underwear in that situation." A short, humourless sound.

"If my dad had found out... This was much better than that." Silence.

"I just miss him." Very quiet now.

"I miss him so much and they've put a date on a calendar and I don't know what to do." Her voice broke on the last word. The interface pinged. Kara looked at it. Bring Pip back. Now please. He was standing in her wardrobe, in an invisibility suit, with a recording running, and she was twenty feet away and crying, and she had just asked him to come. Time to see if his preparation paid off.