Chapter 279 --279
The woman from the meeting. The one whose function she had not been able to fully identify. The one who asked precise questions and made no unnecessary movements and whose small contained expression of amusement she had seen twice.
She was, apparently, the administrative director.
Which meant she had read the collar charter thoroughly enough to authorize the implementation. Which meant the six weeks since Dimitri had submitted it had been spent in genuine review rather than in the specific institutional delay that was the default response to documents that required real decisions.
She filed this.
’Current authority: functional, confirmed. Both of them.’
She sent the confirmation back through the formal channel.
Added item twenty-three to the completed column.
---
The morning of the implementation Elara arrived at the hall before anyone else.
She stood in the empty space and looked at it.
Same hall. Same dimensions. Same stone floor and high windows. The chairs had been arranged in the same configuration — rows facing the calibration station, enough space to move without crowding, the specific operational layout that she and Ken had designed together a year ago in a palace that was no longer hers.
Ken wasn’t here.