Refined. Dry. The tone of someone who has been keeping your schedule while you were busy and has several things to report.
「The 'Julius' template has been archived and cross-referenced for behavioral accuracy. All biological functions are on Manual Override. Body temperature: 37.1°C, as pre-calculated — I noted the Countess's contact sensitivity during the corridor interaction and adjusted accordingly. You are welcome.」
「Sir Hendor,」 the Butler continued, without pause, 「has just committed to your service. I calculate this as 91% genuine response to perceived strength, with 9% attributable to what I can only classify as professional respect for the [Blade of the Fallen] technique — he recognized it as something new, and old soldiers respect novelty they cannot immediately categorize. Both components are stable. Neither requires active management.」
Hendor was still standing where the stumble had left him, watching Julius's face with the expression of a man who has made a decision and is watching whether it was correct.
「I have prepared a summary of tonight's dinner guests,」 the Butler said. 「Shall I brief you now, or would you prefer the stimulation of incomplete information? I ask only to calibrate your preferred operational style.」
Shinji felt the corner of Julius's mouth move, and recognized with faint, distant interest that it was the first time his face had done that without instruction.
"Brief me," he said.
「Efficient. I appreciate working with someone who knows what they need.」
「Fourteen guests. Primary subject of interest: Baron Aldric Kapel, who arrived at the fortress three hours before you, traveling at a pace inconsistent with a routine visit. He has changed his outer coat and footwear since arrival — the Falmuth boots have been replaced with Muller-appropriate alternatives. He prepared for this dinner, Master. He came ready to manage an outcome and is now recalculating, because the outcome he prepared for was a funeral.」
「Secondary subject: the household's Head Maid, Sera. She flinched — 0.2 second duration — when Captain Vane's name was mentioned in the courtyard. Cross-referencing Vane's archived memories: Sera held a private meeting with the Captain six weeks ago. Twenty-two minutes. Her current emotional register suggests she is calculating whether his death clears her position or complicates it. She knew what he'd done and said nothing. Complicit through silence, at minimum.」
「The conspiracy therefore has three confirmed nodes: Kapel, Vane, and Sera. Kapel is not the architect. His debt records — accessed from the Earl's study ledger during your corridor conversation with the Countess, while you were occupied with the performance — show financial obligation to an entity operating under a Falmuth trade license. He is a lever. Someone else is the hand.」
「Shall I tell you whose hand, or would you prefer to enjoy your dinner first?」
Shinji looked at Hendor, who was watching Julius's face with the particular quality of a man who has decided to trust something he doesn't understand.
"Sir Hendor," he said. "Can I trust you?"
The old knight's expression didn't shift. "If you have to ask, you already know the answer."
It was correct. He'd already run the probability.
"Good," Shinji said. "Tonight, at dinner, I need you to watch the Head Maid Sera. Count how many times she looks at Baron Kapel without a conversational reason. Don't make it visible."
Hendor's eyes narrowed. "You already know something."
"I know several things," Shinji said. "What I'm establishing is whether your eyes are sharp enough to be useful."
A silence that had the specific weight of a man deciding whether to be offended or impressed.
The old knight stood — slowly, with the particular dignity of someone whose knees have strong opinions but have learned to keep them private — and picked up the blunted sword.
"The boy really did die in that forest," he said. Flat. Not an accusation. The statement of a man who deals in facts.
"Yes," Shinji said. "He did."
Another pause. Then: "I'll watch the maid."
He turned and walked toward the fortress without ceremony, his back straight and his step measured, and Shinji watched him go and understood that he had just acquired something considerably harder to get than a body.
「Sir Hendor's loyalty coefficient: updated and stable,」 the Butler noted. 「I would classify him as 'Terrified But Invested.' Historically the most reliable category. Shall I file him under 'Circle'?」
Shinji thought about the framework — the line he'd drawn in the cave between his circle and the world's threats, between who was worth protecting and everything else.
*Julius's teacher for fourteen years,* he thought. *He came to this training ground because he felt something was wrong, not because he was ordered to. He knelt when it cost him something to do it.*
"Yes," he said. "File him under Circle."
「Noted. Current Circle manifest: Sir Hendor (Terrified But Invested). I will refrain from noting that one person represents a statistically insufficient sample size for a protective circle, and that this observation has already been filed per your previous instructions.」
"Appreciated."
「Master — dinner in nineteen minutes. The Countess has seated you to her right. Baron Kapel is directly across the table. The butler — the household one, not myself — has been instructed to serve the Falmuth red wine, which Kapel favors. He will feel comfortable. This is, of course, a mistake on his part.」
「The hand behind the lever,」 the Butler added, as Shinji sheathed the Silvershard, 「belongs to an organization operating through Falmuth financial intermediaries. Their account structure matches, in three specific particulars, the signature of the Western Holy Church's local tithing office. I have cross-referenced this against four independent data sources in your archive. The confidence interval is 96.2%.」
「I considered telling you this earlier. I decided dinner would be more interesting if you had time to process it first.」
Shinji paused at the edge of the training grounds, looking at the lit windows of the fortress hall.
The Holy Church. The organization that exorcised ghosts on sight. The organization with Holy Knights whose Purification Barriers bypassed Physical Attack Nullification — his single hardest counter, the one thing in this world specifically designed to destroy what he was. The organization that had apparently decided, through the financial mechanism of a Falmuth trade license, that Julius von Muller needed to die.
He stood there and held this information the way you hold something with a very sharp edge. Carefully. With clear attention to which direction it was pointing.
*Of course,* he thought. *Of course it's the Church.*
He went inside.
---
Far to the northwest, in a palace that had been cold for longer than most nations had existed, a pair of eyes the colour of old blood opened from beneath closed lids.
Guy Crimson, Primordia of Red, set down his wine glass.
He did not stand. He did not move. He simply existed in the particular quality of absolute stillness that belonged to things that had been powerful for long enough that power itself had become boring, and tilted his attention toward the direction of the feeling.
The Jura border. Something had just *clicked* there, in the magicule spectrum — a layered signature, two tracks evolving simultaneously, spiritual and physical wound together in a configuration he had not seen before. Ghost and flesh. Software and hardware, both upgrading at once, the energy signature of something that did not fit any existing category in three thousand years of accumulated observation.
He considered it.
It was not large enough to require his attention. B-rank, perhaps, climbing toward A. A novelty, but novelties were common in the Chaos World. They usually resolved themselves — into something powerful enough to become interesting, or into something dead.
He picked up his wine glass again.
*Interesting,* he thought, in the way of someone filing a note for later, *but not today.*
He returned to his wine, and the palace was cold, and the northwestern wind moved through the Jura Forest without knowing what it had just passed.
---
The great hall of Muller Fortress was warm with candles and the kind of careful social performance that formal dinners required from everyone present.
Shinji walked in wearing Julius's face and Julius's formal posture and Julius's slight drawl, and [Focused Record] activated the moment he crossed the threshold and began building a map.
Earl Raymond at the head of the table: controlled relief layered over the fresh frustration of a man who has just learned that a problem he didn't know existed has been handed to him. He wanted to be proud of his son. He was also unsettled, and the unsettlement was winning.
Countess Elara to the Earl's right: composed, watchful, the grey eyes moving over Julius with the specific attention of someone taking inventory rather than simply looking.
And directly across from his assigned seat — Baron Aldric Kapel.
He was a man in his mid-forties, soft in the way of people whose comfort has been consistent, with the careful smile of someone who has spent thirty minutes deciding which expression to wear tonight. He had chosen *sympathetic relief.* He was, according to the physiological data "Omniscient Analysis" was already collecting, running at approximately 140% of his baseline anxiety, which he was managing with the practiced discipline of a man who had lied professionally for some years.
He looked at Julius and said, "Thank the gods you're safe, cousin," with the warmth of someone who had rehearsed it.
*[Target: Baron Kapel. Vocal stress markers: elevated. Micro-expression beneath the smile: 0.2 seconds, category — relief, but not the kind generated by someone happy you survived. The kind generated by someone recalculating their next move.]*
"Thank you, Aldric," Shinji said, in Julius's voice, with Julius's formal drawl, and took his seat across the table and watched the man pour his wine with hands that were absolutely, carefully still.
*A professional,* he noted. *But not comfortable.*
He let the first course arrive. He let the Earl begin the expected debrief — the direwolf, the guards, the forest, the formal condolence for Captain Vane that Raymond delivered with the emotional temperature of a man acknowledging a broken cart wheel. He answered in Julius's voice, with Julius's measured cadence, and let [Focused Record] run the room in parallel.
Head Maid Sera, against the wall to the left: first look at Kapel at the three-minute mark. Second at six. Both under the cover of refilling a water glass. The intervals were too precise to be coincidental and too subtle to be noticed by anyone not specifically watching for them.
*Two looks in six minutes,* the Butler noted. *Sir Hendor is at 1-for-6. He is watching.]*
Good.
Shinji waited until the second course, and then he set down Julius's fork, and said — conversationally, with the mild tone of someone reconstructing an unfortunate event — "What I found strange was the coordination. Alpha female Direwolves are territorial, but they don't move packs between hunting grounds without a compelling reason. The approach vector was precise. Three angles, simultaneous." He looked at nothing in particular, the way someone looks when they're remembering. "Almost as though they'd been motivated by something external. Pushed."
A brief silence. The Earl was listening with focused attention. The Countess had gone very still.
And across the table, Baron Kapel's carotid artery pulsed once, hard, and then settled.
*[Baron Kapel. Vascular response: elevated 14%. Pupil dilation: 2.1mm. Amygdala response signature: acute fear trigger. Stimulus: the word 'motivated.']*
「Probability of guilt,」 the Butler said, with the dry precision of someone delivering a weather report, 「has revised to 99.4%.」
"Pushed," Raymond repeated, the word arriving in his mouth with the weight of what it implied.
"Wolves can be motivated by scent-markers," Shinji said, with the thoughtful mildness of someone working through a puzzle. "Or by something placed in their territory. Something that made the clearing seem like a natural hunting ground." He picked up his wine glass. "I found it interesting, is all. I'm sure the investigation will clarify."
He looked up from his glass and met Kapel's eyes.
And held them.
Kapel's smile stayed in place with the structural integrity of something that had been built to stay up even when the foundation was failing. His eyes, however, had acquired the quality of a man standing very still because movement would give him away.
"I'd be glad to assist any investigation," Kapel said. "For my cousin's sake."
"Of course," Shinji said warmly. "I was actually hoping to ask for your help, Aldric. You know the border routes better than anyone. If someone had moved something into the eastern gully in the past month, you'd know who had the access to do it."
A beat of silence that lasted exactly one second too long.
"I'll ask around," Kapel said.
"Wonderful." Shinji smiled Julius's smile — the formal one, the one with no warmth behind it, the one Julius had reserved for situations he was managing rather than experiencing. He'd found it in the memory archive and judged it appropriate.
*[Baron Kapel: re-evaluating,]* the Butler reported. *[He is no longer calculating whether you survived. He is calculating whether you know. He does not yet believe you know everything. He believes you know something. This is, strategically, the optimal state. A man who believes he is partially exposed will make moves to protect himself. Those moves will be informative.]*
「The Head Maid, Sera, has looked at Kapel four times in twelve minutes. Sir Hendor has looked at her twice, and then at you once. He is connecting the pattern.」
「Additionally: Baron Kapel's dessert fork is being held in a grip approximately 40% tighter than the soup spoon was. He is, Master, quite frightened. I find this appropriate.」
Shinji reached for his own wine glass.
He did not look at Kapel again. He turned to the Countess and asked her, with Julius's softest register, about the repairs to the eastern granary that Captain Vane's memories had flagged as her current project, and Elara von Muller looked at him with grey eyes that were still taking inventory, and answered, and the dinner continued.
At the far end of the table, a man in a borrowed expression was very quietly unraveling.
「One final assessment for the evening,」 the Butler said, as the candles burned lower. 「Baron Kapel will attempt private communication with his Falmuth contact within 48 hours. He will likely use the household courier system, which means Sera. When he does, you will have the name of the architect.」
「I recommend allowing this to occur rather than intercepting prematurely. The message will be more informative than an arrest.」
「Also: the Countess has looked at you eleven times during this dinner. Seven of those were when she thought you weren't watching. She is not suspicious in the way that leads to accusation. She is suspicious in the way that leads to a mother sitting awake at night trying to understand what has happened to her son.」
「This one,」 the Butler added, with what Shinji was beginning to recognize as its version of gentleness, 「I do not have a strategic recommendation for. I simply thought you should know.」
He sat with that for a moment, in the candlelit warmth of a fortress that was not his, wearing the face of a boy who was not coming back, while the mother of that boy tried to understand the thing that was sitting in his place.
He adjusted Julius's left cuff.
He thought about equivalent exchange — the ledger he kept, the debts and repayments, the architecture of what was owed.
*I'll make it true,* he'd promised, in the forest, before the dive. *I'll find who sent the Direwolf pack and make it cost them.*
He looked at Kapel, across the table, cutting his dessert with hands that were almost steady.
*First things first.*