Fylon came after the eighth hour.

Late. The hour when Fylon came without being summoned meant the information had waited as long as it could.

He sat. He put a folded note on the table.

"The oldest councillor," he said. "Rethon."

Lysander looked at the note but did not reach for it yet.

"Tell me first," he said.

"He has been meeting with a merchant. Twice in the past three weeks. The merchant’s name is Teles — he runs grain and olive oil through the southern ports. Legitimate business. But Teles has a brother in Corinth who has been in the Mycenaean commercial network for fifteen years."

"What does Rethon give him."

"I do not know the content. What I know is the pattern. Rethon meets Teles. Teles sends a letter south. The letter goes through the Corinthian network." He paused. "The timing of the meetings aligns with three events. The wave. The Mycenaean refusal. The council document."

"He is sending information."

"I believe so."

"To whom."

"I do not know who receives Teles’s letters in Corinth."

Lysander picked up the note. Read it. Set it down.

"This is not the same as doran," he said.

’Doran,’ he thought. ’Two years ago. A supply official selling route information. That had been clean — a clear mechanism, a clear response, a clear outcome.’

’This is different. Rethon is not a supply official. He is a senior council member who has been at the palace since before Hector was born. He is a man Priam calls by his given name.’

"No," Fylon said. "It is not the same."

They looked at each other.

"You are certain of the pattern," Lysander said.

"I am certain of the meetings and the timing. I am not certain of the content."

"How certain of the pattern."

Fylon said nothing. Which was its own answer.

"Good," Lysander said. "Tell no one else."

Fylon went out.

________________________________________

Lysander sat.

The supply office in the evening. The lamp. The coastal watch report still open on the table from before Fylon arrived.

’Rethon,’ he thought.

He had spoken to Rethon twice. Both times at formal occasions. Rethon had the quality of men who had been at courts for a long time — correct, unhurried, impossible to read. He had voted for every significant policy in Lysander’s time at the palace by appearing to agree with whoever had spoken before him.

He was not a man Lysander had thought about carefully.

’Which is probably the point,’ Lysander thought.

He closed the coastal watch report and set it aside.

He needed to think. Not act — think. The pattern Fylon had described was a pattern, not a proof. And even if it were a proof, the mechanism mattered as much as the fact. In the Doran situation the mechanism had been simple: administrative review, quietly, no drama. Rethon was not Doran.

He sat with it.

Outside the window, the harbor was moving into its night rhythm. A ship coming in late, the dock workers calling to each other, the specific sound of ropes being thrown and caught.

He thought about what Rethon would tell Teles. Not military positioning — Rethon did not have access to military planning. Not the fleet construction timeline — Rethon was not in those meetings. What he had access to was the thing he had been present for: the council chamber. Priam’s words. The refusal and its reasoning.

’He is selling the reasoning,’ Lysander thought. ’Not the decision — the decision is public. The reasoning. The specific words Priam used. What Priam considered and what he dismissed and what his threshold for changing his mind might be.’

’That is what the Mycenaean network wants. Not information about ships or soldiers. Information about the mind of the king.’

He stood and went to the window.

The ship was docked now. The dock workers were done. The harbor was quieter.

He thought: three days. I will sit with this for three days before I say anything to anyone.

________________________________________

He was walking back through the harbor district the next morning when he saw Paris.

Outside the eastern school again — but not reading this time. He was talking to two children. Settlement children, by the look of their clothes, perhaps seven and nine years old. He was saying something in the coastal Anatolian dialect, haltingly, and the children were correcting him.

Both children were laughing.

Paris was laughing too.

’He is being corrected by seven-year-olds,’ Lysander thought, ’and he finds it genuinely funny.’

He stopped and watched for a moment.

Paris noticed him. He said something to the children — in the dialect, haltingly, something that made them laugh again — and came over.

"They are better teachers than Kephon’s contacts," he said.

"They have nothing to lose by telling you when you are wrong."

"Yes. Kephon’s contacts were polite." He looked back at the children, who had found something else to occupy them. "I have been thinking about the attendant."

"Which attendant."

"From Pelonides’s delegation. The one who stayed behind for administrative reasons. He left four days ago." Paris looked at him. "He was here for three weeks after the rest of the delegation left. That is a long time for administrative reasons."

"Yes," Lysander said.

"He was in the harbor district twice in the last week. I saw him both times."

"Where specifically."

"Once near the grain merchant quarter. Once at the southern dock."

"Did he speak with anyone."

"Not that I saw. He was walking."

Lysander looked at the school. The two children had started a game involving a stick and a circle drawn in the dirt.

"Tell me if you see him again," he said.

"He left four days ago."

"Tell me if someone matching his description returns."

Paris looked at him.

"Yes," he said.

He went back inside the school.

________________________________________

Arsini was at the supply office when Lysander returned.

She had left three tablets on his table and taken the chair near the window — not his chair, the secondary one she sometimes used when she had more than a brief update to deliver.

She looked up when he came in.

"The buffer zone northern section. The expansion is at capacity."

"Already."

"Three days. The rate of arrival has not slowed."

He sat down.

"Options," he said.

"The secondary cleared space — the eastern corridor. We discussed using it as the emergency movement route. If we convert it to residential, we lose that corridor."

"And if we do not convert it."

"We turn away approximately two hundred people in the next week."

"We do not turn anyone away."

"Then the eastern corridor becomes residential. I wanted you to say it so I had the authorization on record."

"Convert it."

She made a note.

She looked at the other two tablets.

"The session records from yesterday. The settlement children cohort — Rea, the girl you asked me to keep in a separate record. She taught herself the multiplication method overnight. I do not know how. She was not present when I introduced it."

He looked up.

"She heard someone else explaining it," Arsini said. "One of the Troy-born children. She heard it once and used it correctly the next morning."

"How old."

"Eight."

He thought about that for a moment. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Keep watching her," he said.

"Yes." She picked up the third tablet. "The Carian timber correspondence. The second name on Adrastos’s list — they responded this morning."

"And."

"They have timber. The variety is different from the northern pine. They want to meet with Daidalos before committing to volume."

"Arrange it."

"Already done. Daidalos goes to Caria in two weeks." She stood. "The third name has not responded."

"Give it another week."

"Yes."

She gathered the tablets.

At the door she stopped.

"Rethon," she said.

He looked at her.

"I do not know anything," she said. "I noticed he has been absent from the administrative morning session twice this week. He has not missed it in three years." She looked at the tablet in her hand. "I thought you should know."

She went out.

’She noticed an absence,’ he thought. ’She always notices absences. She noticed it and did not ask what it meant. She brought it and let me do the rest.’

He sat for a while longer.

Then he pulled the timber correspondence toward him and started on the response to the second Carian name.

He picked up his shard.