The hours after the Church's failed seizure were a strange, suspended time. Sir Edric remained at my door, his vigilance redoubled. The whispers in the corridors had changed—still present, still hungry, but now layered with speculation about the confrontation they had witnessed. The Duke of the North versus the Inquisition. The Saint caught between two powers. The academy had turned into a stage, and I found myself playing the role of an unwilling star.
Kaelen did not return. I told myself this was practical—he had his own calculations to make, his own strategies to deploy against the Church's inevitable countermove. But the absence of his presence, the cold shield of his protection, left a space that other forces were quick to fill.
The first intermediary arrived that afternoon.
