Chapter 19 Edmund Knows Something

Chapter 19 Edmund Knows Something
POV: Lila Monroe

I was already standing in the corridor, but I had not left yet.
I still do not know why. The door was closed. I had said goodbye. The conversation had ended in the only way conversations with Ryder ever ended, which was with both of us having said exactly what was necessary and nothing past it. There was no reason to still be standing there.
I left before I had to think about why I hadn't.
The next three days were preparation. That was how I framed it to myself, which helped in the way that naming a thing always helped, giving it a shape that could be worked with rather than a feeling that sat in your chest and waited. Preparation had structure. Structure had steps, and steps had completion points, and completion points gave you somewhere to briefly rest without actually resting. I drafted three separate versions of my interview responses. Not scripted, scripted answers collapsed under follow-up questions, but frameworks, the shape of what I would say and the tone and the direction I would steer any question that came in at an angle.
The interview was scheduled for Thursday at ten.
Ryder texted Tuesday afternoon. "How are the responses."
I had not told him I was drafting anything, which meant he had assumed I would be, which was accurate enough that I found I could not acknowledge it directly without also acknowledging what it meant that he had assumed it.
"Fine," I sent back.
He sent one word: "Good."
That was the whole exchange and it took up considerably more space in my head than it had any right to, which I was aware of and not planning to examine any further.
Wednesday evening I went over the responses one final time, closed the document, cleaned my desk, and went to bed at a reasonable hour, which was not something I often managed and which told me I was more tired than I had been admitting.
I slept for almost six hours.
At six forty-five my alarm went off and I lay still for a moment and ran through the morning. Get up. Shower. Make tea. Eat something. Review nothing, because reviewing at this stage would not help me and might tip the balance in the wrong direction entirely. Go to the interview. Come back.
I got up.
I showered.
I filled the kettle.
And when I went to the door to pick up the dorm newsletter that was sometimes left outside on weekday mornings, I looked down first the way I always looked down, and there was an envelope.
White. Plain. My name on the front in the same block capitals as the notes from Marcus, which was wrong because Marcus had withdrawn and this should not be possible, and I stood there for one full second before I picked it up.
Inside was a single folded sheet of paper. Not lined notebook paper this time. Slightly heavier, like it had been printed. I unfolded it.
It was a photocopy. A very clear one. Three posts from the forum I had used in my first year, the private forum I had used to arrange the early bookings before I had built any other system, the forum I had deleted my account from and then confirmed the deletion of twice and then verified a third time using a tool I had found through a contact in the computer science department who did not know why I needed it.
My posts. My words. Specific bookings, specific dates, not enough to be legally definitive but enough to be completely recognisable.
The forum had been gone for eight months.
I looked at the photocopy. I read it slowly, the way I read things I needed to understand rather than things I needed to react to. Then I folded it back along the crease and put it in my jacket pocket and went to the kitchen and made the tea.
My hands were steady.
I made them be completely steady.
The interview was in three hours and twelve minutes and I had a framework and I had three response structures and I had memorised the relevant clauses of the conduct code and I was going to walk into that room and give them nothing actionable and the file was going to close.
And then I was going to deal with this envelope.
I sat down with the tea and thought about who had it. Not Marcus. The printing quality meant a scanner with institutional-grade resolution, not a home setup. The forum posts themselves had required access to archived data that should not have existed, which meant someone with either the technical capacity to retrieve deleted records or a contact who had copied the posts before they were removed.
Edmund Kane had resources. That was the obvious conclusion. But Edmund Kane sending an envelope under a dorm room door the morning of my interview was a particular kind of move, the kind that said I know, and I could have used this but I sent it to you first, which was not a threat so much as a demonstration of what was available.
It was worse than a threat, because threats had defined responses and this did not.
I finished the tea.
I texted Ryder: "Getting ready for the interview. I will let you know how it goes."
Three minutes passed. Then: "Call me after."
I put my phone in my bag and stood up and looked at my desk where the three response frameworks were saved in a document I had not opened since last night, and I did not open it now.
I already knew what I was going to say. The envelope had not changed that. I was going to walk in, answer clearly, give them nothing, and close the file.
Whatever Edmund had or thought he had, he had chosen to slide it under my door instead of handing it to the conduct office.
There was a reason for that.
I did not know yet what the reason was, and I needed to, because a person who held something instead of using it immediately was a person who wanted something in return, and I was walking into an interview in three hours and I needed to know what he wanted before I came out of it.
I picked up my bag.
The envelope was still in my jacket pocket.
I pressed my hand flat against it from the outside, feeling the folded edge of the paper through the fabric, and went out the door.