Neither of them moved.
The presence below the window hadn't shifted. It had been standing in the same spot since Alistair first caught it on his scan, patient in a way that most threats weren't.
Due's hands were flat on the table. "It knows we're here."
"It's known where we are since the settlement," said Alistair. He was already at the wall beside the window, back flat against the stone.
He pushed his scan outward. And after a few moments, there was nothing new.
The same unidentifiable output, the same trained suppression, the same absence of anything he could categorize or name.
"It followed us through the gate, through the city, to this building. If it wanted to act, it would have acted two days ago."
"That's not comforting."
"It's not meant to be comforting. It's meant to be accurate."
Due looked at the window for a long moment, then back at his hands. "What do you want to do?"
"Nothing. We move at first light. It can follow us to the administrative district, too."
Alistair pushed off the wall and sat back down on the bed. "Whatever it is, it's been patient this long. One more night changes nothing."
Due didn't argue. He turned back to his work at the table, quieter now.
Below the window, the presence stayed exactly where it was.
Alistair kept his scan on it while the minutes passed. It didn't waver, didn't test the building's entrances, didn't do anything that resembled scouting or preparation. It only… stood there.
'It's not here to attack,' he thought. 'It's here to watch.'
The distinction should have been reassuring. It wasn't.
Eventually, the lamp's oil ran low, and the room dimmed. Due's work grew quieter. The presence below the window stayed, and Alistair stopped checking whether it would leave.
The presence vanished sometime before dawn. Alistair felt it go, the scan returning empty where it had been standing for hours.
He didn't mention it. Due had already noticed the change in his expression and drawn his own conclusions.
Alistair had been turning the approach problem over since the underground palace and hadn't solved it by morning.
He kept at it while Due navigated them through Therasia's early streets. The city is different before it fully wakes.
Fewer soldiers visible, street vendors hauling carts toward their positions, the iron wheels loud against stone.
A baker's apprentice threw water across a threshold and went back inside.
Due generated an obligation with a passing clerk who asked him for directions.
He resolved it quickly, the clerk continuing with a slightly puzzled expression, and rejoined Alistair without breaking stride. His collar was already crooked again.
The administrative district came into view across the square.
The building was already active, clerks arriving through the main entrance, a guard rotation completing its circuit, the east wing's narrow windows lit from inside.
The problem wasn't Elara's Characteristic. He could handle a Characteristic.
Equalizer had been reading and matching powers long before Alistair had understood what it was doing.
The problem was simpler than that.
Everyone who approached Elara first studied her Characteristic. They looked at what she could do, decided they needed it, and then came up with a reason for her to give it to them willingly.
The representatives in that meeting room were doing exactly that. Caldren had been doing exactly that her entire life, just with more patience and more leverage than anyone else.
'If I approach her the same way, it's still the same thing,' Alistair thought. 'Different words. Same intention.'
He didn't know what the alternative looked like in practice. He'd figure it out when he was standing in front of her.
Due had slowed beside him at the edge of the district. He adjusted his collar and looked at the square. "You've been quiet all morning."
"I'm thinking."
"About the approach?"
Alistair didn't answer.
Due frowned slightly. "Please tell me you have a plan."
"I have most of a plan."
"Which part is missing?" asked Due.
"The important part."
Due stared at him for a moment, then sighed and kept walking.
"Wonderful."
The service entrance was exactly where Due had placed it from memory, a low door used by staff arriving before official hours, tucked behind a supply cart left against the building's east wall.
Due timed their approach perfectly. They entered just as the first full rotation was finishing.
The interior smelled like marble polish and cold stone.
Alistair had been in administrative buildings before, in different cities, under different circumstances.
They all had the same feeling about them, that quiet of places where decisions are made by people who never have to carry them out personally.
The ground floor had high ceilings and corridors branching in three directions.
Due quickly moved left into a narrow passage, through a door, and into a small room that looked out over the east corridor through a decorative archway.
They both stopped at the same moment.
Twenty feet away, a closed door with two guards posted outside. Voices were audible through it. The formal negotiation cadence is still active.
Alistair ran his scan, curling his fingers the way he always did, and looked at the room.
He found Elara immediately. However, he spent a moment just reading what he'd found, because it wasn't what he expected.
Favor didn't read like a Characteristic at all. It was more atmospheric than anything he had encountered before, almost like it wasn't a power so much as a condition the room was in.
The representative inside was leaning forward without realizing it, agreeing to things he hadn't intended to.
The guards outside were relaxed in a way that had nothing to do with the quiet morning.
Even standing in the corridor, the air felt slightly different near that door, and it faintly irritated Alistair that he could notice it from here.
Elara herself was completely separate from all of it.
Sitting at the center of a room that was bending toward her, watching it happen, the way she had probably always watched it happen. Not directing it, just aware of it, with no way to make it stop.
Alistair's lips twitched.
'Every person who ever stayed near her,' he thought. 'Every faction that sought her out. Every guard who decided they liked her. None of them can be sure the feeling was their own. And neither can she.'
That was exhausting. He understood her situation well enough now.
Due tapped his arm lightly. "Two minutes to the rotation," he whispered.
Alistair looked at the door. He still didn't have the answer. However, he had something now that he hadn't had before entering this building.
"Let's move," he said.
Due followed him through the archway. They entered the east corridor.
Seeing this, both guards turned.
And from the upper staircase at the corridor's far end, the presence appeared, moving downward, unhurried, as if it had picked this moment a long time ago.
The meeting room door swung open.