Chapter 65 Unfinished Things
Kattie’s POV
Bella was in the secondary archive room.
I knew because Sena had told me, and because I had made a decision that morning that required me to move before I reconsidered it.
I knocked on the open door.
Bella looked up. Her expression went through exactly one adjustment — a brief recalibration, and settled into something neutral and watchful.
“Kattie,” she said. Not warm, not hostile.
“I have something relevant to what you’re working on,” I said. “Ronan’s access chain inside the elder structure.” I came in and closed the door. “I’ll keep it short.”
“Alright,” she said.
I sat without being invited, we were past performing courtesy—and laid the documentation on the desk between us.
“Internal access log. Ronan’s administrative chain, past fourteen weeks. Three entries cross-reference with the elder succession council’s closed session record.” I looked at her. “Specifically, communications routed through a senior elder’s office to an external contact format matching the AX-Veiled designation.”
She looked at the pages. “Which elder.”
“Foss,” I said. “Dowan’s representative.”
She looked at me for a moment. “I had Elder Prynn as my candidate.”
“Prynn is clean. Procedurally sound throughout.” I kept my voice even. “Foss has been attending more sessions than his appointment level warrants. Three of those sessions coincided with outgoing communications through Ronan’s chain.”
She nodded slowly, absorbing it — quickly, precisely, without performing the processing out loud. That, I had noticed over months of watching her, was one of her more useful qualities. She thought before she spoke.
“You’re giving me this,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Why.”
“Because Ronan is more dangerous than either of us has been treating him,” I said. “And because I am the reason he had as much material to work with as he did.” A pause. “This is what I can do from where I am.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“That’s very practical,” she said.
“It’s the only way I know how to operate right now.”
Something shifted in her expression. Not sympathy — recognition. The look of someone who understood a particular kind of exhaustion because they had been carrying a version of it themselves.
“Can I ask you something,” she said.
“Yes.”
“When did you know Ronan was using you.”
I thought about it carefully.
“Yesterday,” I said. “But I had the pieces for months. I just hadn’t let myself arrange them in that order.”
“Because of Rhys,” she said.
“Because of Rhys.” I looked at the desk. “When you want something badly enough, your pattern recognition adjusts to protect the wanting. That’s not an excuse. It’s an explanation.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“I made similar adjustments,” she said. “When I got here. About what Rhys was and wasn’t saying.” A pause. “I chose interpretations that let me stay.”
I looked at her.
“The difference,” I said, “is that staying was dangerous for you and you did it anyway. For me, staying was the goal. The whole architecture.” I didn’t look away. “I was protecting what I wanted. You were surviving long enough to understand what was happening.”
She held my gaze.
I had not planned to say that. It had arrived from somewhere and I hadn’t stopped it, and now it was in the room and neither of us was going to pretend it hadn’t been said.
“Thank you for the documentation,” she said. Quiet. Direct.
“Use it well,” I said.
I stood.
On the way to the door it arrived without warning — a specific image. Rhys at twenty-two, laughing at something I had said in the east training ground. The particular sound of it. The way he had looked at me afterward with uncomplicated warmth. The version of him I had loved first.
I held the door handle for one second longer than necessary.
Then I turned slightly. Not fully around.
“You’re still underestimating him,” I said.
“Ronan,” she said. Not a question.
“He doesn’t need authority to be dangerous. He just needs access. And he still has it.” A pause. “Whatever he’s moving toward…the documentation, the elder contact, the external framework— those are visible pieces. He wouldn’t leave visible pieces unless he wanted attention on them.”
The silence stretched for a moment.
“There’s a piece we’re not seeing,” she said.
“There usually is,” I said.
I walked out.