Page 41 of Orc’s Bones

She’d read it before I arrived. She’d sat with it alone until I came through the door. She knew every signature in those records the way she knew everything in the Archive, and the grief of knowing this one showed in the set of her mouth and nowhere else.

“Who else knows the panel records?” I asked.

“Everyone who was on it. Anyone with archive-level access.” Lyssa’s voice stayed level. “And Thruk. The Bone Lord’s seal is on the outer record. He has full access to every official proceeding.”

“He doesn’t know what we’re looking at yet.”

“No.”

I stood. Picked up the relay transmission record — Lyssa had already made a clean copy, the lines of it clean and exhausted. “Come with me.”

She stood without asking where we were going.

Thruk was in the outer Archive corridor when we came through the reading room door. He’d been there the whole time — let me work without interrupting, which landed with more weight than it would have two days ago. Varek at the corridor junction. Korven against the far wall with his arms crossed, holding a great deal.

I handed the relay transmission copy to Thruk.

He read it. Not fast — line by line, the signatures, the catalogue references, the notation Lyssa had added matching the signature to the panel records. He held the page without moving for a moment after he’d finished.

“Name.”

“Veth Orlan.”

The silence after confirmation. Not surprise. Worse, in its way. Revision of a much longer history than the last two days.

Varek moved — not toward the door. Toward Thruk’s right side, one step and a half, the ready position. He hadn’t been asked. He’d read Thruk’s face and moved before the order formed.

“Not tonight.” Thruk’s voice was level. “Tonight we know who it is. Tomorrow we decide what to do about it.” He looked at me. “This person was on the panel.”

“The signature matches a lineage that contributed to the panel’s founding charter — not a current seat. They were present through a proxy when my exile was voted.” I kept my voice even.

“Malverek didn’t create the foundation. He found it. It was already in the Archive’s oldest restricted layers, before my exile, before his. Placed and left for the next person who got close enough.”

“For him to find.”

“Possibly. Or for anyone. The pattern is consistent with someone who watches researchers develop frameworks that approach a certain point, removes them, and keeps the materials available for the next.” I held the record. “You know the rest of that argument.”

“A third generation.” Thruk’s voice was flat with it.

“A patient one.”

He handed the record to Lyssa. “Archive is sealed tonight. Nothing in, nothing out, all access suspended except for you and Xya.” He looked at Korven. “Lower Crypt levels — double the post.”

“Yes, Bone Lord.”

“Varek.” No change in register. It didn’t need one. “Find out where our person of interest was during the last two days. Physical location. Who they spoke with. Every record.”

He didn’t ask where she was going. Neither did she. The Cathedral at this hour was quiet — Varek already moving, Lyssa already in the Archive, every direction covered. They walked without discussion to his chambers, the way you walked somewhere you had already decided to go.

“The person on the panel.” I didn’t retreat into the work — I pulled it forward. “He voted to exile me and kept the foundational materials available and he’s been in the Dominion watching this play out. He knew about Malverek. He may have directed him to the restricted records.”

“They were at the vote when I was there.” His voice had dropped a register. “I remember every person in that room.”

“I remember you.”

Something moved through his face. A man who’d registered he was standing in a place he hadn’t expected to be standing.

“You were watching me during the panel.”