Elias didn't linger in Victor's suite after the door shut. He exhaled once, sharp and deliberate, before turning on his heel and crossing to his own rooms, the ones Victor had outfitted for him without asking.
The desk was waiting as always, neat to the point of insult: his notes in stacks, his pens aligned, and the computer humming softly in standby. And on the corner of the desk lay the phone Ashwin had returned to him yesterday.
Not his real phone, but a clone. The second one, Ashwin had called it in his monotone delivery, droning about mirrored backups, secure channels, and coded encryption layers that Elias hadn't bothered to listen to. He'd caught maybe three words before tuning him out. He didn't care about the mechanics, only that the contact list was intact. And Ruo's name now had a real contact that made her reachable again.
