He visited all six schools in six days.

Not inspections — visits. The difference mattered. An inspection produced performance. A visit produced the thing that happened when people did not know they were being watched.

He came at different hours. Sometimes at the opening, sometimes in the middle of a session, twice at the end when the children were leaving and the teachers were still in the room reviewing the day. He said very little. He watched what the room was doing when it thought no one important was paying attention.

The first school — craftsmen’s quarter — was the original one.

He sat at the back for forty minutes. Deia was teaching. She had eleven children in front of her, five from Troy and six from the settlement, and she was moving between them with the specific attention of someone who had learned to read the moment a student stopped understanding and to address it before the student decided they did not understand.

A boy from the settlement — eight years old, a dialect Lysander had heard before in the registration work — was stuck on the second step of the multiplication method. Deia crouched beside him. She did not explain the step again. She asked him two questions. He answered both. On the second answer his face changed — the specific expression of someone who has found a thing that was there all along.

Deia moved to the next child.

’She does not celebrate the moment,’ Lysander thought. ’She registers it and moves. The child’s understanding is not a performance for her. It is just the thing that happened and now the next thing needs to happen.’

He left before the session ended.

The fourth school — eastern district — was where the withdrawals had come from.

He arrived at the end of the session. The Troy-born children were filing out. Three of them passed him at the door. One looked at him — a boy of nine, the direct look of a child who had not yet learned to avoid the eyes of adults. Then he was gone.

The teacher — a woman Arsini had trained in the second year, who had been running this school alone for eight months — was reviewing the day’s records. She looked up when Lysander came in.

"The withdrawals," Lysander said.

"Four this week."

"Do you know why."

She set the records down. She was quiet for a moment.

"I know why," she said. "The father who came last week — the first one. He stood at the door during the session and watched. He did not say anything while he watched. He came to me after and said: my son is sitting beside a settlement boy. I said: yes. He said: that is not what I was told to expect. I said: what were you told to expect. He said: I was not told anything. He left."

"He was not told anything," Lysander said.

"No."

"What would he have needed to know."

She looked at him.

"That it would happen. Before it happened."

He found the father three days later.

Not through official channels — through Fylon, who found people the way Fylon found everything, by knowing which threads connected to which others and following them without announcing the following.

The man’s name was Teron. A craftsman, mid-forties, with the hands of someone who had been working with wood since before he could reach the upper workbench. He received Lysander in the front room of his workshop — not the family area, the professional space. A message in that.

Lysander did not sit behind the workbench. He sat on the low stool that the apprentices used.

"Tell me about your son," he said.

Teron looked at him.

"Alexion," he said. "He is nine. He has been in the school since the first year."

"Is he learning."

"Yes." No hesitation. "He learned faster there than I expected. I expected — I do not know what I expected. The numbers work. Doros at the palace — he hired two students from that school. My neighbor’s daughter. My neighbor told me."

"But you withdrew him."

Teron looked at his hands.

"My wife went to pick him up three weeks ago. She saw the settlement children in the session. She came home and said: there are people from the boats sitting with Alexion. I said: yes, that started this month. She said: when were we told. I said—" He stopped. "I did not know when we were told. I could not remember anyone telling us."

"You were not told," Lysander said.

"No."

"That is my failure," Lysander said. "Not yours. Not your wife’s. The decision to open the shared sessions was correct. The way it was communicated was not."

Teron was quiet.

"My son liked his school," he said. "He talked about it every evening. That stopped."

"Why."

"Because we took him out." He looked at the workbench. "He did not understand why. He asked twice. I did not have a good answer."

Lysander sat with that.

’Alexion asked twice,’ he thought. ’And Teron did not have a good answer because the answer was: we were frightened by something we did not understand. Which is a true answer and a terrible one to give a nine-year-old.’

"Would you bring him back," Lysander said, "if you and your wife could see a session first."

Teron looked at him.

"What would we see."

"What the school actually is. Not what you imagined it had become."

"And what is it."

"Come and see," Lysander said. "Tomorrow. Bring your wife. Sit at the back. Do not say anything. After an hour, tell me what you saw."

Teron was quiet for a long time.

"My wife," he said. "She will want to know who the teachers are."

"The teacher for Alexion’s age group is a girl named Deia. She has been in the school since the beginning. She learned what she is teaching there."

"A girl."

"Twelve years old."

Teron looked at him.

’I know what he is thinking,’ Lysander thought. ’He is thinking: they have a twelve-year-old teaching my son. He is deciding whether that is a problem or an answer.’

"Tomorrow," Teron said.

"Tomorrow," Lysander said. "Bring your wife."

He told Arsini.

She was at the harbor school, the end of the afternoon, and she listened without interrupting. When he finished she made three notes.

"Teron and his wife," she said. "Eastern school. Tomorrow."

"Yes."

"I will put them at the back of Deia’s session."

"Yes."

She looked at her notes.

"He said: my son stopped talking about the school. He asked twice why he was taken out. Teron did not have a good answer."

"Yes."

"Alexion knew the school was right," she said. "Before his parents did."

"Yes."

She wrote one more note.

"The other families. The ones who sent inquiries and have not withdrawn. I have invitations going to them this week. Five families."

"Good."

"Deia knows they will be watching."

"What did she say."

Arsini looked at her tablet.

"She said: good. I want them to see."

’Twelve years old,’ Lysander thought. ’Saying: good, I want them to see.’

"Yes," he said. "She would."

He walked back toward the supply office.

His right hand was still slow from the morning’s writing. He switched the supply summary tablet to his left hand and found it manageable. Two years of the sword grip. Things built without noticing.

Fylon was at the supply office door when he arrived.

The late hour. The specific quality of the visit.

"Tell me," Lysander said.

"Teles met with Rethon two days ago. This morning Teles’s regular courier departed south." Fylon looked at the harbor through the supply office window. "The courier is three days faster than the regular commercial post. Teles uses him only for time-sensitive correspondence."

"The information is moving."

"Yes."

"How long to Corinth."

"Seven days at the courier’s pace."

"And from Corinth to Agamemnon’s network."

"A week. Perhaps less."

So: two weeks. In two weeks, Agamemnon’s network would have received accurate intelligence from a trusted source about the fleet construction timeline. In two weeks, whatever Agamemnon was planning around the assumption of a faster Trojan fleet would be adjusted.

’We bought time,’ Lysander thought. ’Some. I do not know how much. Time is not a fixed currency.’

’Rethon sat with Teles and passed what he heard in a room he thought was empty. Teles wrote south. The courier is already gone.’

’I put those words in that room.’

He picked up his shard.

Teron came with his wife.

Lysander did not go to the school that morning. Arsini had said: let them see it without you in the room. You change what happens when you are present.

She was right. He stayed at the supply office and worked through the coastal watch report and waited.

Arsini came to him at the fifth hour.

She said: "They are staying."

"Alexion comes back."

"Tomorrow. Teron’s wife asked if she could come again next week and watch a different session. I said yes." She sat down. "She cried."

"During the session."