Chapter 98: The Report

Chapter 98: Chapter 98: The Report

Damian kept his word. He asked to see Helena that same afternoon.

Donald took him down to the eighth floor himself. Sylvia came too, a step behind Damian and a little to his left, where she could reach him in one move.

Helena’s new lab had been an empty office floor two days ago. Now it had four long tables covered in notebooks, a chalkboard that ran the length of one wall, and a small reading lamp she had brought from Weller Street. She was standing at the board when they came in, writing a column of numbers.

She turned around, saw Damian, and stopped.

"I know you," she said slowly. "You were at the Capital Academy, the week they suspended my license. You stood at the back of the hearing room and didn’t say anything."

"Yes," Damian said.

Helena looked at Donald. "Why is he here?"

"He works for TIG now," Donald said. "He has something to tell you. I told him he had to say it himself."

Damian took two steps into the room and stopped. He kept his hands where everyone could see them.

"Your husband didn’t die in a breach," he said.

Helena didn’t move.

"There was no breach that night," Damian went on. His voice stayed flat and level, the way it always did, but he was looking at the floor. "Julian Vane wanted your research gone and you frightened. He asked Guild Master Sterling for help, and Sterling lent him a Dragonheart strike team and me. The team went in at midnight. Your husband was guarding the door to your lab. He fought them for four minutes. They killed him and took your papers."

The chalk snapped in Helena’s hand.

"And you?" she said.

"I wrote the report afterward," Damian said. "Gate breach, unknown origin, one fatality. I put the strike team’s damage down as monster damage. I filed it with the Association. It’s still on record."

For a long moment, nobody said anything.

Then Helena raised her right hand.

A circle of blue light opened on the floor under Damian’s feet. It wasn’t an attack. It rose around him in a thin, glowing ring at the height of his chest and stopped there. Donald felt the mana in it. It was dense and carefully shaped.

[Arcane Reading]

[Spell: Circle of Witness (A-Rank)]

[Effect: Any spoken lie inside the circle burns the speaker’s throat. Cannot kill.]

Sylvia’s hand went to her dagger. Donald touched her arm and shook his head.

"You’ll answer my questions inside that," Helena said. Her voice was quiet. "If you lie, you’ll know."

"Ask," Damian said.

"Did Thomas suffer?"

Damian was silent for a moment. "Yes. Not for long."

The ring didn’t flare.

"Who killed him?"

"The team’s captain. Roderick Hale. B-Rank at the time. A-Rank now."

"Where is he?"

Damian looked up for the first time. "He was promoted after that night. Dragonheart paid for it. He’s the Warden of Seals at the Crown Archive in Aldmere. He stands at the Archive door during the Ceremony."

The ring stayed blue.

Helena lowered her hand. The circle faded.

She turned back to the chalkboard, picked up a new piece of chalk, and stood there without writing anything. Her shoulders were very straight.

"Get him out of my lab," she said, without turning around. "I’ll work with what he knows. I’m not stupid. But I don’t want to see him unless I have to."

Damian bowed his head slightly and walked out. Sylvia followed him without a word.

Donald stayed.

After a while, Helena said, "You knew."

"Since yesterday."

"And you hired him anyway."

"I hired the floor plans," Donald said. "And I wanted you to hear it from him, in a room where he couldn’t lie to you. If I’d waited until after Aldmere, you’d have found out in the middle of the Archive, from Hale’s mouth. That would have been worse."

Helena was quiet for a long time.

"Thomas would have punched him," she said finally. "Right in the face. Then he’d have asked him to stay for dinner and tell him everything." She let out a breath. "I’m not as kind as Thomas."

"You didn’t kill him," Donald said. "That’s kind enough for one day."

---

The planning meeting was that evening in the War Room.

Damian’s plans were spread across the tactical table, held flat at the corners with coffee cups. Aris had her tablet. Evelyn sat on the edge of the table with one boot on a chair. Helena came up last and stood at the far end, as far from Damian as the room allowed.

[Dimensional Core Resonance: 63.6%]

[Estimated time: 30 days.]

[Days to Ceremony of Seals: 8.]

"Ashford Holdings has confirmed," Aris said. "Two days of meetings, starting the morning of the Ceremony. They’ll put the Investor and his aide in the Kingsgate Hotel. That’s two streets from Council Square."

"His aide is you," Donald said.

"His aide is me," Aris agreed. "I’ll keep the Ashford people busy and make sure there are witnesses to where you are."

"The Ceremony starts at the third bell after noon," Damian said, pointing to the drawing of the Archive door. "Six Masters and one clerk walk down to the seventh floor. Hale stands at the door. The seals open together. They file the new papers. Twenty minutes, then the doors seal again."

"I’ll be in the shadow under the clerk," Sylvia said. "When the doors open, I go in with him. Twenty minutes is enough to find one shelf if I know which one."

"You won’t," Helena said. "The Archive files sealed research by Council code, not by name. You’d be looking at ten thousand gray boxes." She folded her arms. "I’m going with you."

Sylvia looked at her. "I’ve never carried two people through a warded floor."

"Then you’ll learn," Helena said. "I’m the only one who can read the seals on those boxes and know which are mine in under a minute."

Sylvia looked at Donald. He nodded.

"I can do it," Sylvia said. "It’ll be slow going in. Coming out, I can drop us anywhere there’s a shadow."

"Then that’s the team," Donald said. "Sylvia and Helena inside. Damian in the gallery above the door, watching Hale. Nyx with Sylvia. Aris and I at Ashford. I’ll be close enough to step in if it goes wrong."

Evelyn put her boot down. "And me?"

Donald had known this was coming.

"You stay here," he said.

"No."

"Evie—"

"No, Donald." Evelyn stood up. "You’re walking into the Capital with a half-healed arm, an assassin, a scholar and a man who used to want you dead. And you want the one person who can cut through a Council ward to sit at home?"

"I want the one person who can stop a Demon King to sit at home," Donald said evenly. "The Archangel is still on cooldown. Azgalor is wounded, not dead. The anchor in the basement is calling his army to this tower. If something comes through while we’re gone, you’re the only thing between it and four million people."

Evelyn opened her mouth to argue.

"And there’s the other problem," Aris said quietly. "You’re an unregistered S-Rank. The moment you set foot in Aldmere, every Royal Guild in the city will feel your aura. The Council will call it a provocation. They’d have every reason to close the gates and search every building. Including the Archive."

Evelyn looked at Aris. Then at Donald. Then she sat back down on the edge of the table, hard.

"I hate it," she said.

"I know," Donald said.

"If you come back with so much as a scratch, I’m going to the Capital myself and burning it down."

"That’s fair."

Helena watched them from the end of the table. Something in her face changed a little, as if she was seeing them for the first time.

---

Later, when the others had gone, Helena stopped Donald at the door.

"Roderick Hale," she said. "When we’re in the Archive."

"You want him."

"I want him to see me take my papers out of his vault," Helena said. "And then I want the Association to have that report, with Damian’s signature on it, and Hale’s name next to Thomas’s." She looked up at Donald. Her eyes were red but dry. "I don’t want him dead, Investor. I want him to live in the cell next to Sterling."

Donald nodded slowly.

"Then we’ll get you both," he said.