Mina didn't sleep much that night.
Not because she was afraid, fear had a texture she recognized, and this wasn't it. This was sharper. More alert. Like her mind had decided something important had happened and refused to let it be filed away.
She replayed the reference hall in fragments.
The way the glass panels had curved inward, enclosing history like a spine.
The ease with which the heirs had occupied the space, as if the room had been built around their future rather than their present.
The pause.
The sentence spoken only to her.
Every establishment has a weakness.
She hadn't been warned.
She'd been instructed.
Mina rose before her alarm, dressed carefully, and checked her work slate twice before leaving her room. She moved through Helix with the same quiet competence she always had, but something in her posture had shifted, not confidence, exactly, but calibration.
She was aware now of where she stood in relation to things.
That mattered.
The reassignment came mid-morning.
Not as a summons. Not as a promotion.
As an adjustment.
Nessa appeared at Mina's station without sound and placed a slim authorization card beside her terminal. Matte black. No designation printed on it.
"Library priority access," Nessa said. "Temporary."
Mina looked at the card. "For what purpose?"
Nessa didn't blink. "Continuity."
That word again.
"You'll rotate between standard archival duties and inner-corridor document prep," she continued. "No direct interaction unless initiated. No speculation. No commentary."
"I understand," Mina said.
Nessa hesitated, a rare thing.
Then, "You are not being tested," she added. "You are being positioned."
That sat heavier than any warning.
Cora found her an hour later, eyes bright with poorly contained curiosity.
"You got a black card," she whispered, already vibrating with excitement. "I saw it."
Mina glanced at her. "You weren't supposed to."
"I work in a library," Cora replied. "Nothing is supposed to be invisible."
She lowered her voice anyway. "That card means you're now… adjacent."
"Adjacent to what?" Mina asked.
Cora's grin softened. "To consequence."
Mina snorted before she could stop herself. "That's not reassuring."
Cora shrugged. "Neither is power. But it's honest."
They worked in parallel silence for a while, until Cora couldn't help herself.
"Did they say anything to you?" she asked, casual in tone but not in intent.
Mina didn't answer immediately.
"Yes," she said finally. "One of them did."
Cora stilled. "Which one?"
Mina shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
Cora studied her, then nodded slowly. "Yeah. That's worse."
The inner corridor assignment placed Mina closer than she'd ever been before, not physically, but logistically. She handled materials routed between Establishments. Documents that weren't secret, exactly, but weren't meant to linger.
She learned quickly what belonged to whom.
Aurelion Prime's files were precise and aggressive in their optimism. Every projection assumed success, and made contingencies for failure anyway.
Virex Consortium's materials were sprawling, layered, obsessed with timing. Movement was power, and power was delay denied.
Sentinel Accord's documentation was sparse. Brutally efficient. Every line existed because it had to.
Eidolon Circle's records unsettled her most. They read like stories told sideways, influence mapped in emotional outcomes rather than directives.
Mina didn't comment.
She didn't speculate.
She logged. Verified. Passed things along.
And somewhere in that quiet efficiency, she felt it again.
That subtle shift.
Not the room responding.
Someone watching how she responded.
She didn't look up.
She didn't need to.
It happened near the end of her shift.
She was returning a secured folio to its holding case when footsteps entered the corridor behind her, one set this time, unaccompanied.
She stepped aside automatically.
The man passed her, then stopped.
Not blocking her path.
Just… near enough that she could feel the heat of another body in the space.
"You're learning quickly," he said.
His voice was calm. Measured.
She recognized it.
Sentinel Accord.
Mina kept her gaze lowered. "I follow the structure."
"Yes," he replied. "That's why it works."
A pause.
"You don't ask questions," he continued. "Most people do."
"They ask the wrong ones," Mina said quietly.
That earned her a reaction, not visible, but present. Like interest sharpening.
"Careful," he said. "That instinct can be dangerous."
"So can ignorance," she replied, before she could stop herself.
Silence.
Long enough that she wondered if she'd crossed something.
Then, softly, almost amused "You'll survive," he said. "Because you know when to stop talking."
He moved away without another word.
Mina stood very still until the corridor settled again.
Her heart was beating faster now, not fear, not attraction.
Awareness.
That evening, back in her room, Mina sat on the edge of the bed and finally let herself think the thought she'd been avoiding all day.
Being close to power didn't make you special.
It made you visible.
And visibility, once earned, rarely faded.
She didn't know yet what that would cost her.
But she knew this much:
The Establishments had names now.
The heirs had faces.
And proximity, even uninvited, had a gravity of its own.
Helix hadn't changed.
But Mina had crossed another threshold.
And this time, she knew exactly where she stood.