“That’s a nice trick,” I say quietly. “Want to explain it?”
Kel looks up at me slowly. His eyes are not Kel’s eyes. They’re close. Practiced. But there’s something… staged in them.
He exhales. “Where did you get that?”
“Answer my question,” I say.
Kel’s fingers hover over the paper, then pull back like it burns.
“That’s classified,” he says.
Fyr shifts. “Godfather, that date?—”
Kel’s eyes snap to Fyr, sharp. “Silence.”
I lean forward, planting both hands on the desk. The wood is warm under my palms.
“I’m not here to play respect games,” I say. “Tell me the truth. Are you Kel Kaijen?”
Kel’s mask hisses a little louder, like it’s angry.
He laughs—soft, strained. “Lonari… you think I’m an impostor.”
“I don’t think,” I say. “I know something doesn’t match.”
Kel’s gaze flicks to the door, then back to me. “You’re tired. You’ve been through?—”
I slam my palm down hard enough to make the desk jump.
“Don’t,” I growl. “Don’t patronize me.”
Silence.
The incense seems suddenly too sweet, cloying in my throat.
Kel’s shoulders sag a fraction.
Then the mask hisses again, and his voice comes out lower, stripped of performance.
“Fine,” he says.
Fyr’s breath catches.
Kel reaches up and, with careful fingers, adjusts the edge of the mask—not removing it, but shifting it like a man loosening a tie.
“I’m not Kel,” he says.
The words sit in the air like poison.
Fyr takes a step back on instinct, eyes wide. “What?—”
“Shut up,” I snap, never taking my eyes off the man in the chair.
Kel—the impostor—keeps talking, voice shaking now.
“They killed him,” he whispers. “They killed the real Kel months before the public story. Quiet. Clean. And then… they came to me.”
“Who,” I demand.
