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The audit had been running for almost three months, although nothing that large moved continuously or quickly.

Some records were clean.

Some were messy for perfectly ordinary reasons.

Some were wrong.

And some were wrong in ways nobody could explain yet.

Those went into a separate queue.

Preserved. Compared. Never overwritten.

That part had been mine.

If a record changed, both versions stayed. No more disappearing history because someone with the right permissions decided the newest version was the only truth that mattered.

The administrator left, and I leaned back in my chair.

Across the room, Sera’n looked up from his terminal.

“You frightened him.”

“I asked him to hold a record.”

“You stared.”

“I was thinking.”

“You stare when you think.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time around Veyr.”

Sera’n’s mouth curved.

He looked better.

Not completely. The weeks in administrative detention had left him thinner, and he still tired more easily than he admitted.

His pendant was back around his neck.

That mattered more than it should have.

He had never asked who retrieved it.

I had never told him I kept it.

Some things didn’t need explaining.

He pushed a data slate across the work surface. “You missed one.”

I took it.

Looked.

Then looked again.

“No, I didn’t.”