The door closed behind Levi Vale, and the room remembered how to breathe wrong.
Celeste Lumos remained exactly where she was.
Hands folded. Shoulders relaxed. Chin tilted in the way the image consultants preferred because it softened her face without making her look weak. Her smile stayed in place for three seconds after the latch clicked shut, because three seconds was long enough to be polite and short enough not to look desperate.
Then she let it fade.
No one in the room moved.
That was the trick, really. The room was never still because it was empty. It was still because everyone inside it had been trained not to look like they were watching her.
The man at the desk resumed typing, though his screen had not changed in twelve minutes. Celeste knew because she had been watching the reflection in the vanity mirror. The woman near the window shifted her weight from one foot to the other, careful to keep her eyes angled toward the false skyline instead of Celeste’s face. The watcher by the interior door touched the side of his earpiece once, pretending the motion was casual. The fourth, the newest, stood too close and breathed too quietly.
That one would not last long.
The quiet ones never did.
Celeste turned back toward the vanity and studied her reflection.
Daystar looked back.
Soft forest-green eyes. Honey-brown hair threaded with gold. Skin warmed by the soft lighting arranged specifically to make her appear healthy, approachable, luminous but not inhuman. The sweater slipping over one shoulder had been selected for that too. Casual. Gentle. Almost vulnerable.
A woman at ease.
A Saint at rest.
A lie with excellent tailoring.
Celeste reached up and touched the loose braid over her shoulder. The gold strands caught the light no matter how she moved. They always did. Cameras liked that. Children liked it more. Interviewers loved to ask whether the gold was natural, as if the answer mattered, as if any part of her had been allowed to remain untouched by people who wanted to explain her prettily.
Behind her, the watcher at the desk stopped typing.
Only for a second.
Celeste smiled at her own reflection.
He started again.
There were nine cameras in the room.
Two obvious, seven hidden.
One in the sun-shaped light fixture above the sofa. One in the tiny black dot beside the thermostat. One behind the third flower vase from the left, though the flowers changed daily and the camera never did. One behind the vanity bulbs. One inside the frame of the painting she had not chosen. One above the interior door. One in the fake window, just high enough to catch her face whenever she looked at the city.
The obvious cameras were for honesty.
The hidden ones were for truth.
The windows showed Bellwether at night, glittering clean and distant, the Basilica glowing like a promise, Meridian Tower shining silver beside it. The view changed with the weather. Rain streaked down the glass on rainy days. Clouds moved when clouds were scheduled. Sunlight warmed the floor in the mornings.
The windows did not open.
Celeste had learned that the first week.
She had learned many things the first week.
Which books had been placed for her image and which, after a private argument with three handlers and one public trust liaison, she had been allowed to request herself. Which flowers were replaced before they wilted because wilted things made donors uncomfortable. Which meals were selected for nutrition and which were selected because someone might photograph them. Which watchers pitied her. Which feared her. Which wanted to be kind and which enjoyed being close to something caged.
Kindness was the most dangerous category.
Cruelty was honest. Fear was useful. Ambition was predictable.
Kindness made promises.
Celeste did not trust promises.
The door remained closed.
Levi Vale was gone.
New rotation. New observer. New set of eyes to learn. The Department loved changing the faces around her, as if loneliness were a room that could be cleaned by replacing the furniture.
Most observers came in with one of three expressions.
The first was awe. They saw Daystar first: the gold, the softness, the public miracle. They became gentle with her in the way people became gentle with museum glass.
The second was fear. They saw the file first, or whatever version of the file they had been allowed to read. They kept their hands still and their questions shorter.
The third was ambition. They saw access. They saw a famous Saint, a career ladder, a story they might one day tell in a bar when they were too important to be ignored.
Levi Vale had been different.
Not better.
Different was not always better.
Different could be a knife with a prettier handle.
But he had not looked at her first.
He had looked at the watchers.
The flowers.
The false windows.
The door.
Most men looked at the Saint first.
Levi Vale had looked at the cage.
Celeste lowered her hand from her braid.
The watcher by the window spoke without turning. “Your pulse elevated during the introduction.”
Celeste looked at her reflection. “How attentive.”
“Was there a reason?”
“Yes.”
The typing stopped again.
Celeste let the silence stretch exactly long enough.
“I met someone new,” she said. “That is generally how introductions work.”
The watcher near the desk resumed typing.
The woman by the window did not smile. They discouraged humor in this wing unless it had been approved for broadcast.
“Did Mr. Vale upset you?” the woman asked.
“No.”
“Did Director Drey?”
“No.”
“Did anything about the interaction feel irregular?”
Celeste turned from the mirror then. Slowly. Smoothly. She knew how to move under observation. Sudden movements became notes. Stillness became notes. Silence became notes. Everything became a note if someone was paid to write it down.
“Should it have?” she asked.
The watcher’s expression did not change. “We are only establishing baseline response.”
“Of course.”
Baseline. Response. Rotation. Compliance. Escalation.
The Department had such careful words.
Words with gloves on.
Celeste crossed to the table and lifted one of the charity programs stacked there. Her face looked up from the cover, smiling beside Aurelian Knox, both of them drenched in gold light beneath the headline:
HOPE RETURNS TO REDLINE: SAINTS REMEMBRANCE GALA THIS WEEKEND
Hope returns.
As if hope were a guest with luggage.
As if it had not been locked out for years and invited back only when the cameras were ready.
She set the program down.
The watcher by the interior door noticed. “Is there an issue with the approved materials?”
Celeste almost laughed.
Almost.
“No,” she said. “The paper is very nice.”
The newest watcher shifted.
Just once.
Celeste looked at him.
He froze.
He was young. Younger than the others, though not as young as he wanted people to think. His hair was clipped close to his head, and his uniform sat too stiffly across his shoulders. He had been told not to stare at her. He had been trying very hard.
Trying made people loud.
“What is your name?” Celeste asked.
The room sharpened.
The woman by the window turned. “Saint Lumos—”
“I asked his name.”
The young watcher swallowed. “Ellis, ma’am.”
Ah.
So this was Ellis.
No wonder Dante had mentioned crying.
Celeste softened her face, carefully. “You may breathe, Ellis.”
His eyes widened.
The watcher by the window said, “Saint Lumos.”
Celeste turned back to the table and picked up an interview card.
Approved question:
What does Redline Remembrance Week mean to you?
Approved response:
It is a time to honor loss, uplift survivors, and recommit ourselves to protecting every citizen of Bellwether.
Not technically a lie.
That was the beauty of Department language.
It could stand beside a corpse and still be clean.
Celeste read the card once.
Then she read it again.
Then she placed it facedown.
The room noticed.
She moved to the sofa and sat with the careful grace of someone who had spent too many lifetimes being told how to fold herself. The pale cushions barely shifted beneath her. Across from her, the Bellwether skyline glittered in the false window, perfect and unreachable.
Levi Vale had smelled like whiskey, cold coffee, rain, and trouble that had been given a badge.
His jacket had been wrinkled. His eyes too bright. His mouth too quick. He had tried to be irreverent because irreverence was easier than fear, but he had not been careless. Not really.
He had noticed too much.
That was either useful or unfortunate.
Possibly both.
Celeste leaned back and looked toward the nearest hidden camera, the one in the third vase.
Not directly.
Never directly.
Directness became reports.
Instead, she let her gaze drift over the flowers. White lilies today. Yesterday had been pale roses. Tomorrow would probably be something gold because Redline week required visual consistency.
The flowers were always beautiful.
They always died somewhere else.
“Would you like tea?” Ellis asked suddenly.
The other watchers looked at him.
Poor thing.
Celeste turned her head.
Ellis had gone pale, but he did not take the words back.
That was interesting.
“Yes,” Celeste said. “Thank you.”
He moved before anyone could stop him, crossing to the service panel near the wall.
The woman by the window made a note.
Celeste watched Ellis’s hands shake as he prepared the cup. He was afraid of doing the wrong thing. Afraid of her. Afraid of them. Afraid of the room, maybe, though he had not learned that yet.
When he brought the tea over, he held it out like an offering.
Celeste took it carefully so their fingers would not touch.
Touch frightened them most.
“Thank you, Ellis.”
He nodded once and retreated.
The tea smelled expensive and tasted like nothing.
Celeste drank it anyway.
The room settled around her again, warm and golden and watched from every corner. Somewhere beyond the door, Drey would be walking Levi Vale back through the restricted corridors. Perhaps Levi would glance once more toward the gold-lit chamber he was not allowed to ask about. Perhaps he would obey.
No.
Celeste’s fingers tightened around the cup.
No, he would not obey easily.
Men like Levi Vale rarely did.
That made them dangerous.
That made them breakable.
That made them tempting to use.
Celeste closed her eyes for one breath, then opened them before anyone could ask if she was tired.
The watcher at the desk typed.
The woman by the window listened.
Ellis pretended not to shake.
The walls stared back.
And Celeste Lumos smiled faintly into her tasteless tea, already wondering what shape the new man’s curiosity would take when it finally cut him.
The tea had gone cold by the time Mercy arrived.
Celeste knew it was Mercy before the door opened.
Not because of footsteps. The Saint Wing swallowed footsteps when it wanted to. Not because of the watchers, though they did straighten just slightly, like furniture remembering it had spines.
She knew because the room changed.
Mercy always brought silence with her.
Not the hard, sterile silence of Drey or the cruel quiet of Judgment. Mercy’s silence was softer. Heavier. The kind that followed hospital beds, closed curtains, whispered updates in hallways, and people who had learned to speak gently because bad news sounded worse when rushed.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
Veda Halcyon stepped inside with a folded medical tablet held against her chest.
She was still wearing the white coat Levi had seen in the hall, though now the cuff was unfastened again, as if she had been called away before she could finish becoming presentable. Her dark hair was twisted back neatly, but a few strands had escaped near her temples. There was faint bruising beneath her left eye, hidden poorly beneath powder, and a stiffness in the way she held her shoulders that told Celeste she had healed someone today.
Someone badly hurt.
Someone important enough for cameras, or secret enough for silence.
Possibly both.
“Saint Lumos,” Veda said.
So formal.
Celeste lifted her cup. “Saint Mercy.”
Veda glanced toward the watchers.
Celeste did not have to look to know what they were doing. The one by the window had straightened. The one at the desk had opened a fresh log. Ellis was pretending very hard not to stare at Mercy’s bruised eye.
Veda noticed him noticing and gave him a small, tired smile.
Ellis looked briefly murdered by kindness.
“Routine wellness check,” Veda said.
The woman by the window nodded once. “Approved. Seven minutes.”
Veda’s smile did not change. “How generous.”
Celeste liked her more when the bitterness slipped through.
Veda crossed the room and sat beside Celeste on the sofa without asking permission from the watchers. That alone was a small rebellion. Not enough to be filed. Enough to be noticed.
Everything was noticed.
“Are you hurt?” Celeste asked quietly.
Veda looked down at her tablet. “Not permanently.”
“That is not the same as no.”
“No,” Veda said. “It isn’t.”
Celeste looked at the bruise under her eye.
Veda reached up as if she had forgotten it was there and lowered her hand before touching it. “A boy at Saint Mercy. Building collapse. He’ll keep the leg.”
“And you?”
“I’ll keep the bruise.”
Celeste stared at her.
Veda sighed softly. “And the headache. And possibly the nausea, if my evening continues with its current sense of humor.”
“You should rest.”
“So should you.”
“I do very little else.”
Veda’s gaze lifted at that.
The watchers did not react.
They knew better than to react to sentences that sounded harmless and bled if held too tightly.
Celeste took another sip of tea. It tasted even more like nothing now that it was cold. She set it down on the low table among the interview cards and charity programs.
Veda’s eyes followed the motion.
“Redline prep?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The room seemed to listen harder.
Veda picked up one of the cards and read the approved response without changing expression.
It is a time to honor loss, uplift survivors, and recommit ourselves to protecting every citizen of Bellwether.
She placed it back exactly where it had been.
“They still write as if grief has a dress code,” Veda said.
Celeste’s mouth almost curved. “Grief photographs better when properly arranged.”
“That sounds like something Asterion would embroider on a pillow.”
“Don’t give them ideas.”
For one brief moment, Veda’s laugh was real.
Then it was gone.
The woman by the window made a note.
Veda turned her head slightly. “Must you?”
The watcher did not look up. “All emotional variations are logged.”
“Then log that I find that unnecessary.”
“I will.”
Celeste leaned back against the sofa. “Careful, Mercy. They will think you have opinions.”
“I have several. Most are medically inadvisable.”
This time Celeste did smile.
Only a little.
Enough for the nearest camera to keep.
Veda studied her for a moment, and the softness in her face shifted into something more private. “Did he frighten you?”
Celeste did not ask who.
There had only been one new thing in the room tonight.
“No.”
“Did he offend you?”
“No.”
“Good. He seemed like the type to offend by accident and then decide the accident had charm.”
Celeste considered Levi Vale: wrinkled jacket, cold coffee, eyes too bright, mouth too quick. “That seems accurate.”
Veda’s fingers rested lightly on the edge of her tablet. “He also seemed less afraid than the others.”
“Less informed,” Celeste said.
“Perhaps.”
“Those often look the same at first.”
Veda watched her carefully. “Do not test this one too quickly.”
Celeste tilted her head. “I don’t test people.”
Veda only looked at her.
Celeste sighed and reached for one of the lilies in the vase nearest the sofa. She touched a petal gently, careful not to bruise it.
“I observe.”
“You provoke.”
“I clarify.”
“You bait.”
“Your bedside manner has become very accusatory.”
“And yours has become very old.”
The words settled between them.
Not cruel.
Not careless.
But true enough that the nearest watcher’s fingers paused over his keyboard.
Celeste’s hand stilled on the flower.
Veda’s face tightened with immediate regret. “I’m sorry.”
“For calling me old?”
“For saying it where they can write it down.”
Celeste plucked the lily from the vase. Its stem had already been cut short, trimmed to fit the arrangement. Beautiful, fragrant, dying on schedule.
“They write down everything,” she said. “At least give them something interesting.”
Veda lowered her gaze.
For all her softness, Mercy had never been fragile. That was the part the public missed. They saw the gentle hands, the white coat, the miraculous recoveries. They did not see what healing cost. They did not see the way Veda carried other people’s pain in her joints, under her eyes, behind every careful breath.
Compassion could hollow a person out as efficiently as cruelty.
The Department liked Mercy because she filled the holes other people made.
Celeste liked her because sometimes Veda looked at the holes and hated the people holding the shovels.
“Your new observer asked questions,” Veda said.
Celeste twirled the flower once between her fingers. “Everyone asks questions.”
“Not everyone asks them silently.”
That was true.
Levi Vale had asked three questions with his eyes before he spoke one with his mouth.
Why so many watchers?
Why false windows?
Why does the Saint of Dawn live like someone waiting for permission to breathe?
And, most dangerous of all:
What are they hiding from me?
“Silent questions are the worst kind,” Celeste said. “They have nowhere polite to go.”
“Do you want him removed?”
The question was quiet.
The room became less quiet around it.
Celeste looked at her.
Veda did not look away.
That was another small rebellion. Larger than sitting without permission. Smaller than salvation.
“Can you do that?” Celeste asked.
“No.”
Celeste smiled faintly. “Then why ask?”
“Because sometimes people deserve to be asked what they want, even when no one intends to give it to them.”
There it was.
Mercy.
Veda could not unlock the door. She could not remove the watchers. She could not stop the rotation or the briefings or the soft-voiced handlers who turned Celeste’s life into schedule blocks.
But she could ask.
Sometimes Celeste hated her for that.
Sometimes it was the only kind thing in the room.
“No,” Celeste said at last. “Do not remove him.”
Veda’s brows lifted slightly. “No?”
“He looked at the cage.”
Veda went still.
Celeste placed the lily on the table.
“Most people look at me and decide what sort of thing I am before they decide what sort of room this is. He looked at the room first.”
“And that interests you?”
“It warns me.”
“Those are not the same.”
“They often arrive together.”
Veda leaned back, looking suddenly more tired than before. “Celeste.”
The name was gentle.
Too gentle.
Celeste hated when her names were chosen for her, and still, there were ways Veda said this one that made it almost feel like a blanket.
Almost.
“Do not make him important because he noticed what any decent person should notice,” Veda said.
Celeste looked toward the false window. Bellwether glittered beyond it, all silver towers and golden streets, beautiful because no one could smell the rot from this high up.
“Decent people are rarer than they advertise.”
“Yes,” Veda said. “And curious ones die often.”
Celeste’s fingers tightened around nothing.
The warning sat between them, soft and terrible.
At the desk, the watcher typed.
Veda turned toward him. “You may record that as medical advice.”
He did not answer.
Celeste laughed under her breath.
Veda’s eyes warmed for a moment, then dimmed again. Her seven minutes were nearly gone. They both knew it. The watchers knew it. The room knew it.
Everything in Celeste’s life came measured.
Wake cycles. Interviews. Meals. Outings. Rest. Smiles. Silence. Mercy.
Veda stood.
“Tomorrow will be long,” she said.
“Tomorrow has a talent for that.”
“The Remembrance language review is in the morning. Don’t argue with Calder’s people before breakfast.”
“I never argue.”
“You once told a public trust liaison that her statement had the moral texture of damp bread.”
“It did.”
“She cried.”
“She had options.”
Veda shook her head, but there was almost fondness in it. “Try to sleep.”
Celeste looked at the untouched bed through the open doorway.
“Of course.”
Neither of them believed her.
Veda moved toward the door, then paused with her hand near the panel. For a second, she seemed to consider saying something else. Something larger than the room allowed.
Instead, she said, “Be careful with Dante.”
Celeste’s face did not change.
The watchers did not move.
But the air sharpened.
“Has he said something?” Celeste asked.
“Not to me.”
“Then why?”
Veda looked back at her.
Because Mercy noticed wounds before they opened.
Because Dante Graves liked beautiful things best when he could imagine them breaking.
Because Celeste had spent too many years being watched by men who confused fascination with ownership.
Because everyone in the Saint Wing knew, and no one said it plainly.
Veda only said, “Because he watches what he cannot judge.”
Then she opened the door.
Warm hall light spilled in around her.
For one second, Celeste saw the corridor beyond: pale stone, cameras, the portrait of the First Saint glowing faintly at the far turn, and Drey’s shadow moving somewhere beyond sight.
Then the door closed.
The room settled again.
Ellis shifted beside the service panel, still pale, still trying not to look like he had heard anything that mattered.
The woman by the window said, “Would you like the remainder of your evening schedule?”
Celeste picked up the lily from the table and laid it across the approved Redline response card.
“Yes,” she said.
Her voice was warm.
Practiced.
“Let us see what tomorrow wants from me.”
The schedule arrived in a folder the color of expensive bone.
Ellis brought it over with both hands, as if the paper might bite him if he held it improperly. Celeste almost told him folders were rarely carnivorous before remembering the Department had found ways to make many harmless things dangerous.
“Thank you,” she said instead.
Ellis nodded too quickly and returned to his place by the service panel.
The folder was embossed with the D.E.A. seal in one corner and Asterion’s slim silver star in the other. Government authority and corporate polish, pressed together so neatly one might mistake them for the same thing.
Celeste opened it.
Tomorrow had already been divided into pieces.
07:00 — Wake assessment.
07:30 — Nutrition.
08:00 — Appearance preparation.
09:15 — Redline Remembrance language review.
10:00 — Movement route briefing.
11:30 — Approved civilian engagement window.
12:15 — Return to Saint Wing.
12:30 — Decompression period.
13:00 — Media training.
Decompression period.
Fifteen minutes to remember she was not a product before the next room asked her to become one again.
Celeste turned the page.
There were approved phrases. Approved pauses. Approved emotional tones. A note reminding her to maintain “visible empathy without overpersonalizing the tragedy.” Another advising against unscripted comments regarding Department response time, survivor intake procedures, or the ongoing medical effects of Redline exposure.
She ran her thumb along the edge of the paper.
The lily on the table perfumed the room too sweetly.
“Would you like to request an adjustment?” the woman by the window asked.
Celeste looked up.
That was new.
Usually they waited for her to ask, then told her no.
“How generous,” Celeste said.
The woman’s face did not change. “Saint Mercy recommended limited preference inclusion to improve compliance comfort.”
Of course she did.
Mercy could not open the door, but she could occasionally loosen the hinge by a millimeter and pretend no one had heard the metal shift.
Celeste looked back at the schedule.
“Where is the civilian engagement window?”
“Old Bellwether,” the watcher said. “Community route. Approved stops only.”
Old Bellwether.
Not Redline, but close enough that the city remembered. Old streets. Old signs. Old grief drinking in old bars and pretending not to know the taste of dust.
Celeste turned another page. “Approved food stop?”
“Harbor Table.”
Celeste stared at the printed name.
Harbor Table was the sort of restaurant that served square plates, edible flowers, and grief-friendly lighting. A place where donors could watch a Saint eat two careful bites of something pale and call it outreach.
“No,” Celeste said.
The typing stopped.
The woman by the window blinked once. “No?”
“I would like fries.”
Ellis made a small sound behind her, quickly strangled.
Celeste did not look at him.
The watcher near the interior door shifted. “Harbor Table has a potato option.”
“That is not fries.”
“It is a roasted fingerling medley.”
“That is a potato apology.”
The woman by the window took a controlled breath. “Saint Lumos, the approved stop was selected for crowd management, nutritional balance, and media visibility.”
“I am not asking to be photographed chewing. I am asking for fries.”
“We can submit the request.”
“Do.”
“It may not be approved.”
“Then submit it beautifully.”
The room absorbed that.
Someone typed.
Celeste returned her attention to the folder, turning another page with the calm of someone who had not just declared war on a vegetable medley.
The door opened without a knock.
It was a small thing.
A small discourtesy.
But in the Saint Wing, small things were rarely accidents.
Celeste did not turn immediately.
She watched the room react first.
The woman by the window stiffened. The watcher at the desk lowered his eyes. The man by the interior door went very still. Ellis looked frightened before he remembered to look neutral.
Then Dante Graves said, “Dawn.”
His voice was smooth enough to make kindness sound like a threat.
Celeste closed the folder.
Slowly.
Only then did she turn.
Dante stood in the doorway wearing a black suit with no visible insignia, no halo pin, no ornament except the thin gold ring on his right hand. He had the kind of beauty the Department trusted because it looked disciplined. Dark hair, clean lines, calm mouth, eyes that did not search so much as weigh.
Verdict.
Saint of Judgment.
Punishment dressed for a gala.
“Dante,” Celeste said.
One of the watchers cleared his throat. “Saint Judgment, this is a private—”
Dante looked at him.
The watcher stopped talking.
Celeste wondered if he had meant to. Wondered if his throat had simply decided survival was more important than finishing a sentence.
Dante’s smile did not move. “I heard you received a new keeper.”
“Observer.”
“That is what they call keepers when they want them to feel polite.”
Celeste rested both hands atop the closed folder. “Do you need something?”
“From you?” Dante stepped fully into the room. “Not tonight.”
He said it as if the word tonight had been chosen carefully.
The watcher by the window stood. “Saint Judgment, Saint Lumos has evening preparation—”
“I won’t keep her.”
No one believed him.
No one challenged him either.
Dante’s gaze moved over the room with lazy familiarity: the flowers, the false windows, the watchers, the untouched bed, the folder beneath Celeste’s hands. He knew this room. Not because he was invited often, but because he paid attention to anything the Department claimed was delicate.
His eyes returned to her.
“They’re sending you to Old Bellwether tomorrow.”
“So the schedule says.”
“Strange choice.”
“Do you think so?”
“I think they enjoy testing what they’ve already wounded.”
The words were almost sympathetic.
Almost.
Dante had a talent for standing near truth without ever becoming trustworthy.
Celeste tilted her head. “And what do you enjoy?”
His smile became softer.
The room became colder.
“I enjoy honesty.”
“No,” Celeste said. “Revelation enjoys honesty. You enjoy confession.”
Dante laughed quietly.
Not loudly. Not enough for anyone outside the room to hear. Just enough to make Ellis lower his gaze.
“There she is,” Dante said.
Celeste did not move.
“There who is?”
“The woman under the sunrise.”
Ah.
There it was.
Dante’s interest always came dressed as observation. He looked at her as if Daystar were a veil he wanted to peel back with clean hands. Not because he loved what was beneath.
Because he wanted to see whether it would scream.
Celeste smiled the way she smiled for cameras. Warm. Gentle. Empty enough to reflect whatever men like him wanted to see.
“You should be careful,” she said. “People have been blinded staring at dawn too long.”
Dante’s eyes warmed with something that was not warmth. “I imagine it would be worth the damage.”
Ellis shifted by the wall.
A mistake.
Dante’s gaze cut to him.
“How is the shift so far?” he asked.
Ellis swallowed. “good, sir.”
“Don’t look so frightened. Saint Lumos is very gentle.”
Celeste watched Dante watch Ellis.
A cat did not always eat the bird.
Sometimes it only tapped the cage to hear wings panic.
“Ellis was kind enough to bring me tea,” Celeste said.
Dante’s gaze returned to her. “How brave of him.”
“It was tea, Dante. Not treason.”
“In this room?” He looked around again. “Are you certain?”
No one laughed.
Celeste did not either.
Dante stepped closer to the table. Not too close. Never close enough to be corrected. Just close enough that the nearest watcher’s fingers hovered above his tablet without touching it.
His eyes dropped to the schedule folder.
“What did you request?”
“Fries.”
That surprised him.
Only a little, but enough.
His mouth curved. “Fries.”
“Yes.”
“The Saint of Dawn demands fried potatoes.”
“I ask for very little.”
“You ask for impossible things in small packaging.”
Celeste kept her smile pleasant. “Then perhaps the potatoes will survive.”
Dante studied her for a long second.
This was what he did. He watched for fractures. For irritation. For weakness. For the pulse beneath the polished skin. He liked reactions the way other men liked wine, savoring the difference between fear and anger, shame and resistance.
Celeste had learned to give him none worth tasting.
At last, Dante straightened.
“Be careful with Vale,” he said.
There it was again.
The new observer becoming a point of interest faster than expected.
Celeste traced one finger over the edge of the folder. “You met him for ten seconds.”
“I didn’t need eleven.”
“What did you judge?”
“He thinks jokes make him untouchable.”
“And?”
Dante’s smile thinned. “They won’t.”
Celeste felt the room listening.
The watchers. The cameras. The flowers, if one believed objects became infected by repetition.
“Is that concern?” she asked.
“For him? No.”
“For me?”
Dante leaned slightly closer.
Still not enough.
Never enough.
“You collect broken things when you’re bored,” he said softly. “Eventually one will cut you.”
Celeste held his gaze.
“Then I will bleed.”
Something flickered behind his eyes.
Interest.
Approval.
Possession’s uglier cousin.
Before he could answer, the woman by the window spoke, carefully. “Saint Judgment, your presence is not listed on Saint Lumos’s evening access schedule.”
Dante did not look at her this time.
“How diligent,” he said.
The woman went pale but did not back down.
Good for her, Celeste thought.
Dante’s smile returned to its public shape. “Of course. We must all respect schedules.”
He stepped back.
At the door, he paused and looked at Celeste one more time.
“Enjoy your fries, Dawn.”
Then he left.
The door closed behind him.
No one moved at first.
The room took several seconds to become itself again.
Ellis exhaled too loudly, then looked horrified at having done so.
Celeste opened the folder.
Her hands were steady.
That mattered. To them. To her. To the version of herself that had survived by learning which tremors could be seen and which had to be buried deeper.
The woman by the window spoke first. “Would you like the interaction logged as irregular?”
Celeste looked down at the schedule.
At Redline Remembrance language review.
At approved civilian engagement.
At Harbor Table’s roasted fingerling medley.
“No,” she said.
The watcher hesitated. “No?”
“Saint Judgment entered, spoke, and left. Nothing irregular occurred.”
That was not a lie.
Not technically.
The Department had taught her well.
Celeste picked up a pen and wrote one word in the margin beside the approved food stop.
Fries.
Then she underlined it once.
“Submit the adjustment,” she said.
Her voice was warm.
Practiced.
“And please be sure to spell it correctly.”