The line hangs in the air long enough to tell me more than any answer could.

The white-haired man keeps his face composed, elegant, almost administrative. The girl behind him didn’t get the same training. She hunches her shoulders, presses her hands against her own rumpled clothes, and lowers her eyes.

The room is too clean for the Red Squid Slums. That makes everything worse.

"I believe there’s been a misunderstanding."

"Usually," I say, glancing at the side door they came through, "misunderstandings don’t leave smeared lipstick and a trembling Drowned behind a public official."

He goes still.

The first strike landed where it needed to. Not in the pride, not yet. In the calculation.

I can feel it easily... he’s a Rank B, with no reason to take me seriously if this turns into a contest of strength. A Rank D, carrying a royal Crest in a place where the King doesn’t know I am. A false messenger with a genuine brooch and an absurd amount of confidence borrowed from someone’s hand that would slap me if he knew.

So I use the only blade that makes sense here: the institution.

"Touch her again inside a Crown administrative building," I continue, keeping my voice low, "and someone may have to explain to Garen Azurea why the Red Squid Slums believes abuse of office became a local privilege."

The girl lifts her eyes for half a second. But it isn’t hope. She just looks startled, the way anyone would at a door opening where there has always been a wall.

The man smiles without showing teeth.

"Sir... I don’t know who gave you a mistaken impression, but she’s only a Drowned."

The temperature of my blood shifts considerably, yet on the outside I leave nothing but a small silence. Calculated. Timing matters. If I answer too fast, it looks like anger. Wait long enough, it looks like a sentence.

"And you’re only a rat," I say, "if you think that lowers the punishment."

His smile dies.

Behind the counter, a clerk I can’t see stops writing. Somewhere in the building behind us, a door closes too slowly, creaking.

"Choose your next words more carefully," the man says.

"With pleasure." I touch the Crest on my chest lightly. "The King entrusted me with a title. Small men tend to confuse a title with a license to abuse power. I’m starting to suspect the Red Squid Slums has a great many small men."

It isn’t a complete lie. Garen did entrust me with the Crest. What I did with other people’s interpretation of that was a problem for whoever was interpreting.

The man studies me for a few more seconds. Then, at last, he inclines his head.

"Baron Thomas Vale," he says. "Designated administrator of the Red Squid Slums under Frost jurisdiction. Rank B."

The last part doesn’t sound like an introduction. It sounds like a warning.

I smile a little.

"Dryden Sands."

"Should I know it?"

"Not yet."

The answer bothers him more than it should. Good bureaucrats love files. Good nobles love genealogies. When something walks through the door without fitting any folder, their instinct starts to itch.

I pull the folded paper from my inventory and set it on the counter.

"The city’s tavern keeper asked me to deliver this."

Thomas looks at the note without touching it.

"Which tavern keeper?"

"Richard Boulevard."

This time the name lands.

Not much. Not enough for a layman to notice. But his fingers stop in the air before reaching the paper, as if his body received a late order to fake normalcy. He unfolds the note and reads.

The first sign is the breath. Short.

Then the jaw. Locked.

Finally his eyes pass over me once, over the Crest, over the girl, and back to the paper. The clean room, the labeled archives, the dark wood and the discreet ventilation runes seem to lose some of their shine in that instant, at least for Thomas. Something written there put him in trouble.

The paper reads: "The hare of quadrant twelve knows you lied to the turtle."

I don’t understand the contents.

I don’t need to.

"You look too worried for a man who runs a city in good order," I say.

He folds the paper with excessive care.

"Richard always had a talent for exaggerating local problems."

"Contaminated ducts are an exaggeration?"

Thomas straightens his cuff.

"The ducts will be cleaned soon. The town hall already received maintenance. We only lack the time and labor to extend the service to the other blocks."

A lie.

I know that smell. Recently burned OXI is one thing. The stench that blankets the Red Squid Slums is old, ground into stone, metal, cloth, and lung. Years of neglect don’t smell the same as administrative delay. They smell like choice.

"Show me this building’s ducts."

Thomas blinks once.

"Pardon?"

"You said the town hall received maintenance. I want to see it."

"That’s a technical area."

"And I’m technically interested."

Thomas looks around. Everyone present fakes work at the same time. The girl behind him stays near the door, as if unsure whether she has permission to exist outside it.

"Lia," he says without looking at her. "Back to the archive."

She hesitates.

I don’t look directly at her. That would only put her at the center again.

"Lia stays," I say.

Thomas turns his eyes back to me.

"Why?"

"Witnesses help avoid misunderstandings."

The air between us narrows.

For a moment I think he’ll refuse. It would be better for me, in a sense. Refusal in front of the Crest creates guilt before the proof. But Thomas is older than his appearance suggests, and sharper too. He picks the less flammable road.

"This way."

We go down a side corridor, then descend a short metal staircase. The temperature drops a little. The sound of the pipes grows louder, but not desperate the way it was at the inn. Wide valves cross the wall in organized lines. Inspection plates carry recent seals. Purification runes glow with a pale, steady blue light, maintained.

Not perfect, but functional. The town hall breathes. The Red Squid Slums coughs.

I stop in front of a side filter and run a finger along the inner edge. Little soot. A light residue of OXI. Recent maintenance, or at the very least periodic.

"Interesting," I murmur.

Thomas stands beside me, too controlled.

"As I said. We’re working."

"No." I wipe my finger on a cloth hanging nearby. "You’re protected. The city is waiting."

He doesn’t answer.

We climb back up in silence. Lia walks behind us without making a sound. By the time we return to the main hall, Thomas has recomposed his face.

"If your inspection is finished—"

"It isn’t." I rest my hands on the counter. "Write a letter of authorization."

"For what?"

"I’m going to inspect every relevant establishment in the Red Squid Slums. Taverns, inns, workshops, Drowned shelters, residential blocks near the main ducts. I want access to the ventilation systems, the maintenance records, and the contracts paid with public money."

Thomas lets the silence breathe.

My plan has just gotten bigger, and more profitable.

"You have no jurisdiction."

"Then write that I do." I tilt my head. "Or refuse, and I’ll record that the Baron of the Red Squid Slums blocked an inspection tied to a Crest of Azurea, after admitting the town hall received maintenance before its people."

His eyes harden.

There it is. The line.

Not the girl. Not the line about the rat. Not Richard. The line is the document. Paper turns suspicion into a trail. A trail becomes a file. A file becomes a knife in the hand of someone more important.

Thomas pulls a sheet of letterhead from a drawer, dips the pen in the inkwell, and begins to write. The handwriting is beautiful. Of course it is. Men like him always learned to sign their own filth with elegance.

When he finishes, he presses a small blue energy rune to the bottom and pushes the letter to me after adding his Diver Mark.

"A provisional authorization," he says. "Limited to visual inspection. No intervention in the systems without the junta’s approval."

"For now." I lie. By the end of business hours, the city will be breathing again.

I take the paper, read enough to confirm he didn’t try to hand me garbage, and tuck it into my inventory.

Before leaving, I look at Lia.

"If anyone tries to punish you for this," I say, without raising my voice, "find Richard Boulevard."

Thomas doesn’t like it, and I don’t care. He won’t make her life harder, won’t even attempt to bury the evidence by burying her. He’d be the first target.

I turn toward the door, and when my hand touches the handle, an aura erupts behind me.

Rank B.

The pressure slams into my back like a compact wave, heavy enough to rattle the windows and lift the papers off the counter. Lia lets out a short sound. The clerk in the corner drops everything in his hands to cover his mouth.

I don’t turn around.

I just stop, hand on the door, and feel the rat’s teeth finally come out.