Haxley doesn’t advance. The smile stays on his face, but his fingers go still over the flap of his coat, where he had stowed the crystal folder. The three runic plates around his wrist lose their rhythm.

"Wait," he says. "Echo Fragment. You asked whether an Echo Fragment dropped along with the page."

He mumbles, retracing his steps, a hand cupping his chin.

"I mentioned a physical page, taken from an archivist monster. A record fragment, material, damaged. I never said Echo Fragment..." And then he tilts his head toward me. "So why was that your first association?"

There it is.

For a clever man, that took longer than I expected.

My question had been honest curiosity. It just wasn’t a mistake.

I let nothing reach my face. Haxley didn’t find an error. He found a door I left ajar. From the moment I saw that page, it was obvious Oliver couldn’t stay at the center of his curiosity. A possible Order S+ with a patron would be too valuable for Haxley to forget just because I asked nicely.

Chaos Theory always looks for the soft place to press. Oliver is big, loyal, visible, useful. A perfect weak point. This time, if someone has to become a walking hypothesis, let it be me.

"You’re a researcher," I say. "I thought you liked questions."

"I like questions that shouldn’t exist. That one shouldn’t."

"Then maybe you’re studying the wrong person."

The light in his eyes changes.

"Explain."

"You came after Oliver because you saw a manifestation behind him at the Oathring."

"Naturally. Patrons only manifest for Divers of Order S+ or higher." He says it more to organize his own reasoning than to correct me.

"And Order isn’t current power."

"It’s potential."

"So you’re not looking for someone strong. You’re looking for someone whose potential doesn’t match their Rank."

The plates slow their rotation. Haxley glances at Oliver for an instant, just one, then comes back to me.

Good.

"Tell me if I have this right. A Rank D defeats Cassio Veil and survives the Royal Sailfish. Manipulates the arena, forces a public healing in front of Rahul Sharma, uses money and reputation like blades, and still walks away on his own feet. And before all that, during Oliver’s fight, a figure appears to save someone in his group. Hmm..."

His mouth opens a little. Not from surprise. From things clicking into place.

"You’re suggesting the manifestation didn’t belong to Oliver." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

"I’m asking a question."

"No." His smile returns, smaller and worse. "You’re offering me a hypothesis."

I let the accusation pass without touching it.

"And what if the patron’s owner were you?" he murmurs, more to himself than to me, his eyes spinning behind the telescope-lenses, hunting for an answer.

The alley seems to lose a few inches of width in the long silence.

For a moment I hear only water dripping from some pipe above us while Haxley’s eyes move too fast, rebuilding the whole scene with a different piece at its center. Oliver stops being the main phenomenon and becomes a condition. A trigger. Someone important enough to provoke a response from something else.

"That would explain it better," he murmurs. "Oliver at risk. A close ally. A protective manifestation. The true owner outside the ring, watching, emotionally involved and bound by the rules of the Oathring." He takes a step forward. "A Rank D with anomalous performance, improper knowledge of monster Echo Fragments, and a possible uncatalogued patron. Yes. Much cleaner."

Oliver shifts his weight behind me.

I raise two fingers without looking back. He stops.

"A test," Haxley says.

"No."

"On you, not on him."

"Still no."

"If you are a hidden Order S+, your refusal just became an administrative detail."

’I’m glad he has no idea I’m an Order SSS. If he did, nothing would stop him.’

The plates open into a circle. Containment, reading, suppression. Nothing built to kill; everything built to hold. Haxley isn’t angry enough to be stupid. He’s weighing the isolation of the alley, the value of the discovery, and how much he can extract before someone who matters shows up.

"I have something for you to study."

I pull the Crest of Azurea from my inventory and drop it on the ground near his boot. The metal strikes the wet stone, rolls half a turn, and settles face up. Too small to block a knife but heavy enough to stop a career.

Haxley looks down.

His face changes for the first time without theater. The click of his tongue comes out short, ugly, human.

"That’s vulgar."

"That’s politics."

The runes stay lit, but they don’t advance. A Rank B could pin me before my next sentence, and neither of us needs to pretend otherwise. The Crest doesn’t raise my Rank. It only turns any aggression against me into a question that might reach the King.

"Why are you under the direct protection of Garen Azurea?"

"As of today, I am."

"What kind of non-answer is that? Answer the—"

"And I wasn’t even obligated to. I wanted to see how far your curiosity would run before it remembered the world has consequences."

The urge to try anyway crosses his eyes, quick and honest. Then it dies where it has to die. Not out of kindness. Out of arithmetic.

The plates fold shut, one by one.

"You prepared this," he says.

"I prepare a lot of things."

"I’m not talking about the Crest."

This time I almost smile. Haxley looks at Oliver, but the main hunger has already left the alley. The center of his notebook has moved.

Exactly as I wanted.

"Congratulations, Mister Oliver," Haxley says, without taking his eyes off me. "You’ve lost your position as the leading hypothesis."

"Best news all day," Oliver mutters.

"Dryden Sands," Haxley says, "I will come back for you."

"Bring written authorization."

"I’ll bring a better question."

He withdraws down the alley unhurried, until he vanishes in the direction of the hospital.

Oliver waits longer than usual before speaking.

"You did that on purpose."

"Yes."

"Since the Echo Fragment question."

"Yes."

"You took him off me and put him on yourself."

The accusation doesn’t come with anger. It comes with understanding, which is worse.

I crouch, pick up the Crest, and wipe the moisture off its edge with my thumb.

"The world keeps trying to turn you into my weak point," I say. "Seemed fair to change the address."

Oliver lets the air out slowly.

"Terrible idea."

"It was."

"But it worked."

"That part you’ve got right."

I start walking back toward Third Breath.

"Come on. Before another genius decides to discover the science of ruining my morning more than it’s already ruined."