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I read it once at the safe house table while rainwater ticks from Corin’s coat onto the floorboards beside me. The room smells of bitter coffee, oiled leather, cedar smoke, and the iron-threaded ward paste Sable has smeared over every threshold within reach. Morning light presses gray and thin through the shutters, catching on the reinforced armor strapped beneath Corin’s coat and the waterproof folio resting near my elbow. Every person in the room falls silent as I flatten the summons beneath my palm.

“Public appearance required before the estate hall,” I say. “Charges: treasonous audit fabrication, theft of restricted archives, unlawful association with unstable infernal hybrid, and disruption of civic containment authority.”

Sable lowers the mug she has been using as emotional support. “He included all that before breakfast?”

“He is nothing if not thorough.”

Corin’s eyes flare gold beneath the shadow of his hood, but his voice remains quiet. “He wants you inside his hall.”

“Yes.”

“Then we do not give him you alone.”

I glance toward Lady Syrenya, who lounges near the cold side of the hearth as if the safe house is merely an unfashionable salon with better security. “We arranged for that.”

Syrenya smiles over the rim of her cup. “Two neutral minor nobles are already waiting near the estate gates, both desperate to be seen on the side of procedure without having to develop morals. It is adorable, really.”

Sable points at her. “I hate how useful you are.”

“Many people do. It has never wounded me.”

Corin rests one hand on the back of my chair, close enough for the bond to warm but far enough to respect the decision forming in my own spine. His restraint feels different after last night. The hunger beneath his skin listens now, deep and dangerous, but his body no longer vibrates with the effort of holding himself together. That steadiness settles me more than I want to admit.

“You do not enter until he overplays,” I tell him.

His mouth tightens slightly. “That sounds like a phrase designed to annoy me.”

“It is a strategy designed to keep Vaerith from claiming I arrived under your coercion.”

“I know.” He leans closer, voice low enough that only I hear the rough edge under it. “I still hate every version of you walking into his house without me beside you.”

I lift my eyes to his. “You will be beside me before this ends.”

“That is not as comforting as you think.”

“It was not meant to comfort. It was meant to be accurate.”

His expression softens despite the tension, and his thumb brushes once over the chair back. “There she is.”

By the time we reach the estate hall, Vaerith has rebuilt just enough dignity to make the damage look intentional.

That may be his most impressive crime.

The grand hall stretches beneath vaulted black stone, its high windows cracked and webbed with repair wards that pulse faintly red under the morning gloom. Servants have swept away the worst of the ash, but scorch marks remain in the seams between floor tiles, and several pillars bear fresh bands of containment script where last night’s collapse damaged their cores. The air tastes of wet marble, burned silver, old perfume, and the faint sourness of magic repaired in haste. At the far end, Vaerith stands before a long table covered in ancient contract archives, genealogical scrolls, and enough wax-sealed proof to remind everyone that he still knows how to dress a blade in scholarship.

Lady Syrenya enters at my right, green silk whispering under a dark cloak, while Lord Peskan and Lady Merrow, our two neutral witnesses, walk to my left with the grave expressions of people who have agreed to stand near danger because political survival requires occasional spine. Behind us, clerks from three houses take their places along the wall, styluses ready. The hall murmurs as we cross the floor.

Vaerith looks directly at me.

“My ward arrives under escort,” he says.

I stop before the table and fold my hands loosely in front of me. “Former ward.”

His pale eyes cool. “Disputed ward.”

Syrenya lifts one brow. “Temporarily unbound principal witness under emergency review, if we are being tedious and precise.”

“I prefer tedious and precise,” I say.