Chapter 25. The Letting of Ink

Ilyra called it “the letting.”

“Blood is dramatic,” she said, chalk tapping her slate. “Ink keeps better.”

We were in a narrow antechamber off the Conclave’s west gallery, a room designed for small humiliations—plain benches, a bowl of water too low for comfort, a window slit that showed only sky. The sort of place where truth learned how to sit up straight.

Garran Thorne waited on one bench, hands folded, looking like a man who’d decided he’d be brave at breakfast and was now regretting the menu. Kael stood near the door, still as a blade left within reach. Syra posted herself in the hall, where anyone who “accidentally” walked by would have to step over her dead ambition. The Ashfall pup had wedged himself between my boots and the wall like a doorstop with opinions.

Ilyra set the rules. “No interruptions,” she said, snapping a thin cord of gray silk between her hands. “If you speak out of turn, I bind your mouth and charge you double.”

Garran looked a