"He's playing a very narrow corridor," Warren murmured, following her gaze. "If House Gracian decides he's more useful as a tool than an independent variable, the fallout won't be subtle."
Yet, even as she spoke, a subtle ripple passed through the crowd near the eastern gallery. The quiet, polite murmur of conversation dipped by a fraction of a note, a collective tightening of posture that rippled outward from the entrance like a dropped stone in a still pond.
A senior delegate from the inner council—a man whose robes bore the intricate, unbranded silver embroidery—had just stepped through the archway, accompanied by an escort bearing a heavy, unsealed dispatch case stamped with the academy's highest security classification.
