Chapter 77: A Disagreement Among Colleagues

Undefined Conviction

Chapter 77: A Disagreement Among Colleagues

Three miles away, in a room with no windows, Ansel set the note's carbon copy down on a table with more force than the paper deserved.

"This isn't how we operate," he said. "Anonymous threats slipped under doors. That's beneath what this organization is actually trying to accomplish."

"It's efficient," Marguerite said, unbothered, not looking up from whatever she was reading. "Efficient matters more than dignity, most days."

"It's cowardly. If we believe in what we're doing — truly believe it, the way I believe it — then we say it to their faces. We don't hide behind unsigned paper like people ashamed of their own convictions."

"You say it to their faces because you enjoy the theater of it, Ansel. That's not virtue. That's preference dressed up as principle." Marguerite finally looked up, something almost amused behind her ageless composure. "The boy already knows what we want. A note under a door accomplishes the same result as your philosophical monologues, with considerably less risk of him talking you out of your own resolve halfway through."

"He hasn't talked me out of anything."

"Hasn't he? You spared Bellamy. You've been feeding him information about his own ability for months now, disguised as evaluation. You call it data collection. I call it something considerably closer to affection, dressed up in professional language so you don't have to examine it too closely."

Ansel's jaw tightened, the closest thing to genuine anger Marguerite had seen from him in years. "That's not what this is."

"Isn't it?" She set her reading aside entirely now, giving him her full, patient attention. "I've watched you for four decades, Ansel. I know precisely what affection looks like on you, because I've watched it cost you everything once already. Be careful you're not building toward losing everything a second time, over a boy you've convinced yourself is merely an interesting problem."

Ansel didn't answer that. Just gathered his coat and left, and Marguerite watched him go with an expression that carried, for just a moment, something almost like genuine concern beneath four decades of careful, practiced detachment.

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Iris arrived within the hour of Cole's call, unhurried as always, and listened to the whole situation with a patience that calculated angles considerably faster than her relaxed posture suggested.

"Halden needs actual legal representation," she said, once Cole finished explaining. "Not corporate, not Ministry-affiliated — someone independent, expensive, and willing to make her administrative leave considerably more public and inconvenient than whoever arranged it was hoping for."

"You know someone?"

"I know several someones. Comes with the territory of surviving corporate politics for as many decades as I have." Iris pulled out her phone, already composing something. "I'll cover the retainer. Don't argue about it — I've got more money than I know how to spend meaningfully, and this feels like exactly the kind of thing worth spending it on."

"That's generous."

"It's practical. Halden's useful to all of us, and useful people deserve protecting when the cost of protecting them is this manageable." Iris glanced up, something warmer than her usual boredom flickering through. "Besides. I like her. Doesn't hurt that she's earned it independent of usefulness too."

Vesper, listening quietly from the doorway, finally spoke. "The note said 'ask yourselves who else is expendable.' Do we actually know who's next, or is that just meant to keep us all guessing?"

"Probably just meant to keep us guessing," Cole said. "Fear works better vague. Specific threats give people something concrete to plan around. Vague ones just make everyone suspicious of every quiet noise for weeks."

"Comforting."

"Wasn't trying to comfort you. Just being accurate." Cole managed a tired, humorless smile. "Guess we keep our eyes open. Same as everything else lately."

Nobody had a better plan currently available. Iris finished her call, confirming a lawyer would reach out to Halden by morning, and the group settled into the quiet of people who'd just done what they could with an uncertain threat, left, for now, simply waiting to see which direction the next blow actually landed from.

Cole walked Iris to the door once the plan was set, and lingered there a moment longer than the goodbye required.

"You said 'expensive and inconvenient,'" he said. "For the lawyer. Feels like you've done this before."

"More times than I'd like to count. Powerful institutions rely on the people they hurt being too tired or too poor to fight back properly. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is simply make fighting back financially painless for them." Iris studied him a moment, something considering behind her usual boredom. "You're learning that lesson faster than most people your age manage. Good. You're going to need it, considerably sooner than you'd probably like."

"Is that a warning?"

"It's an observation. I don't deal in warnings the way your other visitors apparently do." She pulled her coat tighter, glancing back once before heading down the stairs. "Get some sleep, Cole. Whatever's coming, it won't be kinder for finding you exhausted when it arrives."

She left the same unhurried way she always did, and Cole stood in the doorway a while longer, turning her words over, feeling the accumulated weight of the evening settle into something he'd carry into whatever came next.

[End of Chapter 77]