The door opened without a knock.
Only one person had that privilege.
"You're still here," Vigdis said, not bothering with preamble. She closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed. "It's past nine."
"I'm preparing tomorrow's session," Meric said, not turning from the window.
"You've been preparing since she arrived." Vigdis's voice was flat, observational. "The dossier review took twenty minutes. You've spent two hours on surveillance footage."
He turned slowly. "You're monitoring my system access?"
"I'm Head of Security. It's my job to monitor irregularities." Her pale blue eyes locked on his. "You, watching a client's library session for forty minutes, qualifies as irregular."
"She's complex," Meric said evenly. "Her defenses are sophisticated. I'm establishing baseline behavioral patterns before tomorrow's session. Standard diagnostic procedure."
"For forty minutes." Vigdis pressed.
"She's not a standard client." He replied.
"No client is standard." Vigdis didn't move. "That's not an explanation." She continued.
Meric held her gaze. "I don't see how my preparation methodology is relevant to the Institute's security."
"It's relevant when the Director spends forty minutes watching footage of a client reading." Vigdis tilted her head slightly. "How many times have you reviewed her intake session?"
He said nothing.
"Four times yesterday," Vigdis continued. "Three times today. In eight years, I've never seen you review intake footage more than once."
"She has clinical training," Meric said carefully. "She'll read subtext, test boundaries, and analyze the methodology in real time. I need to anticipate her moves."
It was a good answer. Logical. Defensible.
But Vigdis didn't buy it.
"I've worked here twelve years," she said quietly. "I know what preparation looks like. And I know what something else looks like."
"Then you'll know I've guided two hundred and eighteen clients without incident." Meric's voice was controlled. "Clause 7.3 has never been an issue."
"Until now?" Vigdis retorted.
The words hung in the air between them.
Meric could have deflected again. Could have cited his record, his training, his methodology. Could have reminded Vigdis that surveillance review was within his authority as Institute Director.
Instead, he turned back to the window and said nothing.
Vigdis, who had known him long enough to read silence as admission, nodded slowly.
"She asked you something today," Vigdis said. It wasn't a question.
Meric's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "The consultation was standard pre-session protocol."
"What did she ask?" Vigdis pressed.
"Nothing that compromised the work." He replied while looking through the window.
"Meric," Vigdis warned.
"It's handled, Vigdis," Meric said, almost irritated by her questions.
"Is it?" She moved closer, stopping just behind him. Her reflection appeared in the glass beside his. "Because from where I'm standing, you're watching footage you don't need to watch, staying late instead of resting before tomorrow's session, and refusing to answer a direct question from the person responsible for this Institute's integrity."
"The Institute's integrity is not at risk," Meric said firmly.
"I'm not worried about the Institute." Vigdis's voice softened slightly. "I'm worried about you."
Meric's palm pressed flat against the glass, the cold seeping into his skin.
He could feel Vigdis waiting—giving him space to admit what they both already knew.
But admitting it would make it real.
And making it real would mean he'd have to do something about it.
"Tomorrow's session is diagnostic," he said finally, his voice carefully measured. "Baseline establishment. Light restraint, sensory deprivation, psychological questioning. Standard Praxis Arc. By the end, I'll have the data I need to structure her Cadence appropriately."
"And that's all you'll have," Vigdis stated.
It should have been a question.
It wasn't.
Meric didn't answer.
Vigdis studied his reflection for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she stepped back.
"I'm not going to tell you how to do your work," she said. "But I will remind you that Clause 7.3 exists because the methodology requires it. Not because of bureaucracy. Because without it, the Praxis becomes something else entirely."
"I know," Meric said sharply.
"Do you?" Vigdis moved toward the door, pausing with her hand on the handle. "Twelve years ago, you terminated Nils Andersen for a violation. He told me the client was different. That he could manage his feelings. That his attraction wouldn't interfere with the work."
Meric remembered. Nils had been good. Competent, ethical, skilled.
And wrong.
"I'm not Nils," Meric said quietly.
"No," Vigdis agreed. "You're better trained. More disciplined. Which is why I trust you'll handle this correctly."
She opened the door, then paused.
"But Meric?" Her voice was quieter now. "You still haven't told me what she asked. Which means you don't want to say it out loud."
She left, closing the door softly.
Meric stood alone at the window for a long time.
For me or for you?
The question had been simple. Direct. And completely destabilizing.
Because the answer—the honest answer—was both.
Evening sessions lowered clients' cognitive defenses, which accelerated breakthroughs, which meant shorter exposure time for the Praxist. It was efficient risk management. Protective architecture built into the methodology itself.
But it also meant he spent less time in the emotional undertow.
Less time feeling the pull of someone else's vulnerability.
Less time risking exactly what was happening right now.
He pulled up the session plan for tomorrow and stared at the clinical framework he'd designed.
SESSION ONE: BASELINE DIAGNOSTIC
Objective: Establish the client's physiological and psychological responses to controlled stimuli.
Protocol:
1. Safe word establishment
2. Light restraint (wrist cuffs, supine position)
3. Sensory deprivation (blindfold)
4. Graduated touch—non-sexual to intimate
5. Psychological questioning during arousal state
6. Denial of climax (frustration tolerance assessment)
He read through it twice, then scrolled to the notes section and added a single line:
Client's arousal pattern: anticipation/delay. Structure session to sustain tension without resolution. Observe response to prolonged Edge state.
It was a clinical adjustment based on what he'd learned this afternoon.
But his hand was shaking slightly as he typed it. His hands never shook.
He closed the document and stood, walking to his private suite on the third floor. The room was minimal by design: a bed, a desk, a single window. No distractions. No comfort that might tempt him to linger when he should be working.
He stood at the window, watching the black water catch fragments of moonlight.
Tomorrow at eight PM, he would guide Aethelreda Kaelen through her first session. He would restrain her wrists, deprive her of sight, and touch her body with clinical precision while asking questions designed to excavate the psychological structures she'd built to survive.
And he would maintain absolute professional distance.
Because the alternative—admitting that Vigdis was right, that Aethelreda had already compromised him before he'd even laid hands on her—was unthinkable.
The Institute was his father's legacy. The methodology was sacred. Clause 7.3 existed because crossing that line destroyed everything the work was meant to accomplish.
Meric Solvang-Lykke had spent fifteen years perfecting control.
He would not lose it now.
He turned from the window and began the mental preparation he'd performed hundreds of times before. Visualizing the session. Anticipating her responses. Designing the precise interventions that would guide her toward the breakthrough she'd paid two hundred thousand dollars to achieve.
Clinical. Methodical. Impersonal.
He told himself he could maintain the boundaries.
He told himself tomorrow would be no different than the two hundred and eighteen sessions that had come before.
He told himself the tightness in his chest was professional focus, not something more dangerous.
And in the cold dark of his suite, with the fjord silent below and twenty-four hours stretching between now and the moment he would touch her, Meric allowed himself one single honest thought:
He was lying.