We requested the audience the moment our carriage reached the capital, forgoing rest despite two days of hard travel, both of us understanding that whatever answer Miraya offered would need to come before either of us had time to construct assumptions that might color the conversation unfairly.
She received us in her private study, the same room where this entire investigation had begun weeks earlier, and I watched her expression shift from welcome to careful alertness the moment she registered the weight both Darius and I carried into the room with us.
"You've found something in Thornwick," she said, before either of us had spoken. "Something considerably heavier than village gossip about a dead woman's mother."
"We spoke with Elena Lumiere," I said, placing the preserved letter on the desk between us. "And with Physician Corwin, who attended Aria during her final months."
