Sabine felt her stomach drop.
Serast was casting a net. He did not know which song mattered yet. That was the only reason they still had a chance.
Maeven swore and began copying the crucial measure onto scrap parchment.
Elara moved toward the door. “I will delay them.”
Lucien memorized the channel pattern, eyes moving over the score with the focus he must have used for siege maps.
Sabine folded the original carefully.
The carved bird’s base had a seam beneath the blackened wing. It opened under pressure from the music box key, revealing a hollow space barely large enough for folded parchment.
She slipped the original score inside and closed it.
The wardens arrived before they finished.
A junior temple clerk stood with two palace guards behind him.
Elara blocked the doorway with royal contempt.
“This is crown archive jurisdiction,” she said coldly.
“Under temple authority for sacred materials,” the clerk answered. He held a writ signed by Serast. “All ceremonial music connected to royal marriages must be surrendered for purification.”
“Purification.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“How convenient that High Hierophant Serast suddenly cares about music the day after Lady Sabine passes a trial using old ceremonial language.”
The clerk’s face reddened.
Elric stepped forward with archive ledgers. “These scores are cataloged under historical preservation, not active ceremony. Removing them requires crown countersignature.”
The argument bought them three minutes.
Long enough for Maeven to finish copying.
Long enough for Lucien to commit the pattern to memory.
Long enough for Sabine to hide the carved bird in her sleeve.
Not long enough to feel safe.
The wardens collected six bound scores, including two with marginal marks that might have been Isolde’s.
The clerk looked toward Sabine once.
Elara stepped into his line of sight.
“Your writ names archive materials,” she said. “Not bodies.”
He looked down.
“As Your Highness says.”
They did not search Sabine.
