Chapter 37. A Knife Tells a Story

The writ from Dusk Spire cracked open the dais like a dropped plate.

Witness, not custody. We all had the grace to pretend that was a concession. The envoy who rose wasn’t House Knife; it was a woman with hair braided with tiny pieces of hammered glass. The braids clicked softly when she moved. Her mask was clear. Not transparent—glass that reflected more than it revealed.

“Vara Nightbridge,” she said, voice easy as a good liar’s. “Keeper of Marks for Dusk Spire.”

Ilyra’s breath tightened beside me. “Ledger-skin,” she whispered. “She binds the deals to her own body. Can’t deny what you can read.”

Vara bowed—not deep, not shallow. “We will present sealed marks,” she said, “made by Alpha Kael during his tenure with us. We presume the court’s appetite for stories is honest this morning.”

“Stories are evidence if you cut them thin enough,” Mara said, chalking her slate.

Kael stepped into the well before he was called. The line of his jaw belonged to a