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Sable closes her eyes. “Please tell me you knocked and I missed it.”
Rhazek looks at her. “No.”
“Of course not.”
I turn on him because rage needs somewhere to stand. “If you are here to tell me to stay calm, make it quick.”
“I have never found stay calm to be useful counsel.”
“Good.”
“Controlled violence, however, has merit.”
Sable points at him. “Do not encourage him.”
Rhazek’s gold eyes shift to me, ancient and unreadable. “There are two ways to win tonight. Controlled exposure or public slaughter. One preserves Isolde’s long-term survival. The other satisfies your immediate rage and places her beneath permanent legal containment by dawn.”
The words strike clean because he does not soften them.
My throat tightens. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you know it intellectually and reject it emotionally every three breaths.”
Sable mutters, “He does.”
I glare at her.
She gives me a look that says she is absolutely willing to fight while terrified.
Rhazek steps farther into the kitchen, the floorboards silent beneath his boots. “Vaerith has already failed once in public. He will move evidence, isolate the woman, and construct a retrospective justification. You have a narrow window before his machine regains alignment.”
“Then I go now.”
“You go intelligently now.”
“That sounds like a trap disguised as patience.”
“It is discipline disguised as opportunity.”
Sable lifts the note. “She has copies going out through Bren if the estate locks down.”
“Then the ledger rooms are targets,” Rhazek says.
The thought hits all three of us at once.
I feel my anger shift shape. It remains hot, vicious, ready to bite, but the direction tightens. Ledger rooms. Ward anchors. Orders. Proof. Vaerith will not wait for dawn if he can erase enough tonight.
I take one slow breath.
Sable watches me like she can measure the difference. “There you go.”
“Do not praise me like a trained dog.”
“I’ll praise you like an idiot making progress.”
Rhazek inclines his head slightly. “Better.”
“Both of you are unbearable.”
