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My throat tightened around the words.

There it was.

"Tomorrow I verify the first part with Kaelen. I ask him exactly what his father threatened and what he was promised in return. If I'm wrong, the rest of the plan changes."

"And if you're right?" Tamsin asked.

"Then I go to Oda. I won't tell her how I reached the sealed records, but I'll tell her what was in them. I need to know exactly what the Charter protects, what would make me forfeit that protection and whether the Council can legally order me off the island."

Silas unfolded his arms. "And Bond Night?"

"I don't run. I don't sign anything. I don't consent to leave Ironmoor, and I don't refuse any Council order I can safely obey. Their best weapon is making resistance look like proof that I'm dangerous. I'm not giving them that." I pointed toward Ronan's note. "The pens open at ten. I intend to be outside the Pit before that happens."

"No," Silas said immediately.

"I'm not planning to interfere with the examination unless you start to slip. But they scheduled it during the ball for a reason. They want me in the Great Hall while they put you in that ring."

His jaw tightened.

"Jax, stay near the doors. If Aldric or one of the Wardens tries to keep me in the Hall, I may need a distraction."

Jax's crooked grin appeared. "Finally. A position suited to my formal training."

"Tamsin, keep my notes. If I don't come back from the Pit before midnight, take them directly to Oda and tell her everything."

Tamsin opened her notebook to a clean page. "Everything everything?"

"Everything everything."

"And the Severing?" Jax asked.

"I'll be there. I won't resist the ritual, and I won't give Aldric the chance to claim I forfeited Ironmoor's protection by refusing to attend. The old law says the Severing only works if Kaelen means it. So he will have to look at me and make his own choice in front of the Council."

"What if he means it?" Silas asked.

The question hurt, but I made myself answer it.

"Then the bond ends. That is his right. But if he doesn't mean it, the ritual will fail in front of every witness Aldric assembled, and Aldric won't be able to pretend the Severing worked."

"And Marion?" Tamsin asked quietly.

"The Council wants me alive and under control. That makes Marion leverage, not their final target. I stay under the Charter, and we make her detention public while the envoys are still here. If they want to keep holding a fifty-eight-year-old woman for raising a child, they can defend it in front of the entire Assembly."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"That is the plan," I said. "Verify what Aldric threatened. Preserve the Charter. Keep Silas alive. Force the Severing to reveal the truth. Then use every witness in this school to make Marion too politically expensive to keep."

Silas gave one slow nod. "All right."

Jax nodded with him.

Tamsin lowered her pen to the page.

"Now," she said, "this is some revolution shit."

I caught Kaelen in the north corridor on Friday afternoon, just outside the Glasshouse doors, with damp soil still clinging to his hands.

He saw me coming and stopped.