Beatrice POV
They didn't call it a punishment.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Language always breaks first when power is trying to pretend it hasn't changed. Words get careful. Soft. Rounded at the edges, like stones worn smooth by years of passing hands. The sharper the action, the gentler the phrasing. That's how you know something real is happening.
Reclassification.
That was the word.
Not demotion.
Not a sanction.
Not removal.
Reclassification implies neutrality. A clerical adjustment. A change in category, not in value. It suggests that nothing essential has been altered, only the frame through which you are viewed.
But frames decide what people are allowed to see.
I was standing at the edge of the western alley when the notice reached me. Not delivered. Not announced. Simply… updated. My access slate sounded once, softly, like an afterthought. A courtesy sound.
No escort arrived. No guards shifted position. Nothing in the physical world reacted at all.
