*Bael's POV*
The holding cell observation window is narrow, a long rectangle of reinforced glass set into the corridor wall, looking down into a room that is deliberately plain. White walls. One table. Two chairs. A single overhead light that leaves no shadows.
Ming is sitting in the far chair.
He looks smaller than Bael remembers. Not physically — the frame is the same, the posture still carries that particular practiced straightness of a man who has spent decades reminding rooms that he belongs at the front of them. But something about seeing him through glass, in a room he didn't choose, under a light he can't adjust, reduces him in a way that boardrooms and family dinners never did.
Bael looks at him for a long moment.
Then he takes out his phone.
It rings once.
"Grandmother."
He doesn't soften what comes next. There is no version of this that lands gently and he has never believed in wasting time trying to make impossible things comfortable.
