The Quiet Suite was empty.
Meric stood at the window, watching Vigdis's silhouette disappear down the corridor with Aethelreda Kaelen three steps behind. The door to the Observation Wing sealed shut with its characteristic soft hiss, and the silence that followed felt heavier than it should have.
He pressed his palm against the glass. Cold. The fjord below was darkening, the water turning from gray to black as evening settled over the cliffs. In twenty-four hours, he would guide Aethelreda through her first session. He'd done this hundreds of times. The methodology was sound. The boundaries were clear.
So why was his chest tight?
For me or for you?
The question had landed cleanly, precisely, as a scalpel slipped between ribs. He'd deflected—told her the evening sessions served the client's vulnerability, which was true. But it wasn't the whole truth.
And she'd known it.
Meric Solvang-Lykke had spent fifteen years learning to read people. Three years of Praxis Certification, where he'd trained to observe micro-expressions, map defense mechanisms, and identify the invisible architecture of someone's psychological walls. Eight years running the Institute, guiding over two hundred clients through their surrenders without once compromising his boundaries.
He knew when someone was testing him.
And Aethelreda Kaelen had been testing him.
The problem was, she'd been right.
He returned to his office and sat at the desk, pulling up her Client Dossier on the screen. Standard pre-session protocol. He needed to review her intake data, cross-reference her stated goals with her behavioral patterns, and design the Cadence that would guide her through the next twelve weeks.
He'd already reviewed the file three times since her arrival.
This was something else.
The dossier opened: DR. AETHELREDA KAELEN, Age 32, Cognitive Behavioral Therapist.
He scanned the header information—professional credentials, Boston address, self-referral—and scrolled to the section he'd already memorized.
Presenting Concerns:Emotional numbness despite professional success. Anhedonia. Hypercontrol in all life domains. Sexual dysfunction (arousal absence, 12+ months). Stated goal: "I want to learn to surrender control because maintaining it has stopped working."
Meric paused.
I want to learn to surrender.
Not "I need help." Not "I'm broken." She'd framed the entire engagement as a deliberate learning process. Intellectual. Controlled. Which meant her defenses were even more sophisticated than he'd initially assessed.
He scrolled further.
Background Summary:Father deceased (patient age 12). Mother's severe depression required intensive caregiving. Patient became parentified child: managed household finances, groceries, and medication adherence. Excelled academically. Built a successful practice by age 28. Relationship history: three partnerships, all ended due to "emotional unavailability" (patient's term).
Meric's jaw tightened slightly.
Parentified child. He knew that pattern. The twelve-year-old who'd had to become an adult because the actual adults had stopped functioning. The girl who'd learned that control wasn't a preference—it was survival.
And now, twenty years later, that same girl had paid two hundred thousand dollars to learn how to let go of the very thing that had kept her alive.
Client self-assessment:"I learned that control equals survival. Now control equals isolation."
There.
That line.
Meric read it twice.
She understood the Core Lie. Most clients took weeks to articulate it. Aethelreda had handed it to him in the intake interview, clinically precise, like she was diagnosing someone else.
Which was exactly the problem.
He scrolled to his own notes from the intake session.
Praxist Assessment:Highly intelligent, self-aware, professionally skilled in psychological analysis. Core maladaptive belief: Safety requires total self-reliance. Childhood parentification created an association between control and survival. Adult life reflects pattern avoidance—relationships terminated before vulnerability becomes necessary.
He'd written that two days ago. It was accurate.
But sitting here now, after listening to her describe arousal as something that had stopped being accessible—after watching her challenge his motives with surgical precision—he realized he'd underestimated her.
She wasn't just intellectually defended.
She was clinically sophisticated enough to observe her own defensive structures in real time and still be unable to dismantle them.
Which made her either the ideal Praxis client or the most dangerous one he'd ever taken on.
He closed the dossier and opened the Institute's security interface instead.
The surveillance system was comprehensive. Cameras in all common areas, motion sensors in corridors, and biometric logs at every boundary door. It wasn't invasive—client suites were private, session chambers were sealed—but it was thorough. Confidentiality required security, and security required observation.
The footage was reviewed weekly by Vigdis. Standard protocol.
Meric pulled up yesterday's recordings and told himself he was verifying Aethelreda's integration into the East Wing. Checking for signs of distress. Confirming the environment was functioning as designed.
He was lying.
He found the timestamp: 6:42 AM, Day 2, East Wing Corridor.
The camera showed Aethelreda emerging from Suite 3, already dressed in black leggings and an oversized sweater. She paused at the threshold, glancing toward the boundary doors at the end of the hallway. Her hand rose—almost reaching for the wall—then pulled back.
Testing the space. Seeking edges.
Meric watched her turn toward the library instead.
He fast-forwarded.
6:51 AM: East Wing Library.
She stood in front of the bookshelves, scanning titles. The collection was curated deliberately: psychology texts, philosophy, and some erotica—resources for clients who processed intellectually.
Aethelreda selected a book—he zoomed in: The Architecture of Thought: Neural Pathways and Behavioral Change. Predictable choice for a CBT therapist.
But she didn't sit.
She stood there, holding the book, staring at the cover. Then she returned it to the shelf.
And pulled a different one.
He enhanced the image.
The Ethical Slut.
Meric's chest tightened.
Not a clinical text. A guide to non-traditional relationships, power dynamics, and negotiated intimacy. She'd bypassed the safe intellectual choice and gone straight for something that required confronting her own desires.
She carried it to the leather chair by the window and sat, opening the book with careful deliberation. For the next thirty-seven minutes, she read. Occasionally, she paused to look out at the fjord, her expression unreadable. Once, she smiled—small, private, almost sad.
Meric watched the smile.
Then he watched himself watching it.
And realized he'd been staring at the frozen frame for three full minutes.
This wasn't a diagnostic observation.
He closed the feed and leaned back in his chair, pressing his palms against his eyes.
He'd terminated two Praxists for Clause 7.3 violations in the eight years he'd run the Institute. Both had been good at the work. Competent, ethical, skilled. Both had insisted their feelings for their clients were manageable, irrelevant, and entirely separate from the methodology.
Both had been wrong.
And now Meric was sitting in his office at nine PM, watching archived footage of a client reading, trying to decode what had made her smile.
Not because it informed her cadence, but because he wanted to know.
A memory surfaced, sudden and unwelcome.
His father's office. Twelve years ago. The woman across the desk, reviewing methodology documentation with remarkable precision.
"Your father had vision," she'd said. "But vision without application is just philosophy."
Meric shook his head, trying to dislodge the memory, but it persisted.
"People are algorithms," she'd continued, pale eyes lifting to his. "Variables to optimize. Your father understood that."
And Meric, twenty-six and still grief-raw from his father's death six months earlier in a sailing accident no one had adequately explained, had made his choice.
"The Praxis is therapeutic. Not manipulative."
She'd smiled—cold, knowing. "You're choosing sentiment over science."
The memory dissolved.
Meric stood and walked to the window, needing the cold glass against his forehead. His father had built this place as a sanctuary. A space where people could choose vulnerability and be met with absolute ethical clarity. Not manipulation. Not exploitation.
Healing.
And Meric had spent twelve years protecting that vision.
Which meant he couldn't afford to compromise it now by thinking about Aethelreda Kaelen's body instead of her baseline. By wondering what her hair would feel like. By replaying the way she'd looked at him when she'd asked for me or for you?
As if she'd already mapped every defense he'd spent fifteen years constructing.