The first private night began as conversation and became something else before the ribbon of white light had fully dimmed.
High Speaker Orin's quarters were larger than the ones assigned to the core, lined with shelves of handwritten records and low tables of pale wood. She dismissed her attendants, sealed the door, and sat across from me with the same calm silver-eyed attention she had shown in the square. We spoke of the outer stair, the selection inside the black spire, the current stage of the Cursed Nebula Physique, and the incomplete knowledge the Descendants had preserved about the deeper layers of the Wound. Her questions were precise. My answers stayed within the boundaries Elizabeth and I had already agreed upon.
Somewhere near the middle of the second hour the character of the room changed.
