Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Saffi felt her face heat and hated that it did. "I… Uh… Browse"

"You browse what"

"The files" Saffi replied. "Sometimes. When you are in the bathroom. Or sleeping. Rarely sleeping. I was looking for Luminite behaviors that could help me with my stubborn chunk, but "classified" is a very inviting word"

Alteea stared. Then the stare cracked, and she covered her mouth with the back of her hand in a gesture that might have been polite or might have been the last line between her and laughter. She laughed anyway. A quiet, guilty sound. "Of course you do"

"I didn't copy" Saffi added quickly. "Or show anyone. I just… read. And later wished I hadn't"

Alteea's smile fell away. Not anger. Thought. "You said the one survivor. You said scientist. From inside the walls"

"That's what the report said"

Saffi picked up the loupe just to have something to look through that wasn't a person she respected. "And Raizen and Obi say the same thing!"

"Excuse me? They know!?"

"Obi came by to see Raizen. Brought a slate. Old. First-gen ugly" Saffi said. "It had a file. That file. He said he got it from inside"

Alteea did not swear. She inhaled like a wave changing its mind. "Inside where"

"He didn't say… Probably a Warden" Saffi admitted. "But he asked for help. And Raizen said yes."

Alteea's eyebrows had sharpened into something that could cut. "If Obi has that report from a Warden, that is a violation that gets people fired or exiled depending on who is reading the rulebook that morning"

"I know"

"It also proves my point" Alteea said, a smile without humor. "Look. Another reason the Lighthouse does not get everything valuable, haha! Because Wardens are people. People hold grudges and break rules. They hand trauma to the weak out of anger or greed. And then your neat network becomes a rumor with teeth"

"I didn't tell him!" Saffi excused herself quickly, hands up. "I didn't tell Raizen, either!"

Alteea's glare softened a fraction. Trust slid back into place where anger had tried to sit. "I don't worry about Raizen" she said, and the certainty in it surprised even Saffi. "He's a vault. He is also a disaster, but only with his own bones"

"True" Saffi giggled, which was safer than agreeing too loudly. "But then, what do we even do?"

Alteea picked up the coffee, remembered she'd already set it down, and put it back again. "We confront Eiden. It's our only lead for now."

"Directly?" Saffi asked. "Not through a Council summons that locks him in an interrogation room."

"Directly" Alteea agreed. "He doesn't need to answer to a committee. He will answer to a question. He likes questions. And he likes me when I am polite. Sometimes even when I am a bit flirty"

"As usual…" the sigh came. "But what if he wasn't there after all?" Saffi asked.

"Then we find out why his name fits the hole in the records so well" Alteea said. "And if he was, we find out why there were no readings. Why the mountain swallowed fifteen and spit one out without leaving a number to blame. We have nothing to lose"

Saffi laughed despite herself, and the lab sounded friendlier for half a second.

"Alteea" she whispered. "That expedition - if the Council hid it to keep people calm, how many more like it are sitting in your paper rooms? How many times did something go wrong quietly so the city could keep breathing without noticing?"

"Enough for me to learn to love doors that never opened too much" Alteea said. "Enough for me to carry a small count of names I don't say out loud"

Saffi's eyes went to the prototype, to the clean lines made by hands that shook a little when they were tired. She thought of Raizen splashing into a wall with a grin that always arrived ten seconds after a plan failed.

"Then we do this quietly" Alteea broke the silence again, and the word was both promise and order. "We start with Eiden. We map his five days. We pull every tool check, every gate log, every camera that still works on that petal. And Raizen-"

"He should be resting."

"He will rest on the way" Alteea said dryly. "Against a wall while we talk. Against a table while we plan. But yes. He comes. Of course, if he can't move, we'll postpone everything. But knowing him, he's already doing stuff that doctors would be hella disappointed at."

Saffi nodded. The shape of the next day began to fit together in her head like a mechanism with better tolerances than the one on the bench. "And the culprit. If there is one. The Warden who leaked"

"We don't go hunting a uniform before we know which body wore it. For now, let's stick to what we have. Follow the paper and the gaps. The gaps tell you more than reports. If there is a culprit, they will trip on the part of the lie they liked too much"

"And if there isn't…?"

"Then… Something of a bigger scale is happening. Something framed across years. By people that don't care who dies."

Saffi reached for the prototype again. She nudged the spring with a sigh and watched it sit perfectly where it should have sat hours ago. "You make it sound simple"

"Oh, but it is!" Alteea said. "Hard and simple are close friends"

"So… You want me to call Eiden" Saffi asked, as if calling Eiden was the kind of thing you did between coffee and lunch.

"No" Alteea said. "I will go to him. He likes to pretend he doesn't read my messages. It gives him an illusion of control"

"Where does he work now?"

"Well… Nowhere and everywhere, at the same time" Alteea let out a faint smile. "But he always ends his day the same way. With a bowl of something barely edible at a stall that I suspect that has never paid taxes. He loves that place way too much. I know, kinda weird, but nice in his own way."

Saffi finally took the coffee and drank, made a thinking face, and drank again. "If the Lighthouse can't be trusted with everything, why do we keep using it for anything" she asked quietly. "Why trust a light that lies"

Alteea's eyes went very gentle, which usually meant the next sentence would be hard. "What kind of question even is that? People live because of it. It's perfect for the essentials" she said.

"Right… Let me guess: It has everything you need"

"Yep"

"Alteea… You can handle the bare minimum and call it more than enough. I've seen you do it more times than I can remember."

"Maybe that's why I'm the best at being HQ! I never have everything I need… But I always manage"

"Yeah, yeah… Keep bragging"

"I'm not bragging. The Lighthouse simply hides what must be hidden. It shares exactly what I need to save people, and exactly what won't kill anyone in the wrong hands."

Saffi set the cup down and found herself smiling, small and sideways. "You practice that speech in the mirror, or what?"

"Every time a Council member sends me an email with three question marks and a link to some random thing he thinks it's dangerous. They're clueless!" Alteea burst out laughing.

Saffi looked down at the prototype one last time, set the magnifying glass aside, and pulled the cover into place. The mechanism closed with a soft, satisfied click.

"Alright" she told herself. "Let's find out who's hiding in the shadows."