Chapter 53. Clemency and Collapse

Moonlight filtered through the penthouse curtains like spilled silver, casting Harper Quinn’s silhouette in delicate fragments onto pale hardwood. She sat at her desk, shoulders slightly hunched, staring at the ribbon that lay beside her like a forgotten oath. It wasn’t tied—hadn’t been in days. But its presence still colored the air, quiet and weighty, as if asking a question that didn’t want an answer.

The burner phone blinked once. She turned it over in her hand.

CLEMENCY HEARING @ 06:00. DECISION PENDING.

It felt more like a sentence than an invitation.

Next to the phone, the shell of the Mother Node drive caught the edge of the moonlight. Stripped bare, inert and unyielding, it radiated finality. But it wasn’t the most dangerous thing on her desk. That title belonged to the manila folder just beneath it—Council-stamped, high-priority, sealed until now. Her fingers hovered over the label: “Father’s Last Words.”

Her fingers trembled. She hadn’t touch