Chapter 376 --376
"I know," he said. He did not appear embarrassed. "I woke up in my room." He paused. "The guard was careful."
"I told him to be."
He nodded. He looked at his desk. "I was thinking about something when I fell asleep," he said. "And I woke up still thinking about it. That happens sometimes."
"What were you thinking about?"
He turned the paper on his desk so she could see it. He had drawn — not a mechanism diagram this time, not a map. Something else. A kind of chart, with names and connections between them, the lines annotated with descriptions.
She looked at it.
"The people at the table last night," he said. "I was thinking about how they connected to each other. Not formally — not through title or rank or official relationship. The other connections. The actual ones."
She looked at the chart.
Her name was in the center. Not in the way of a hierarchy, not elevated — simply in the middle, because that was the geometry of it, the position from which the connections radiated. Samuel on one side. Demerti on another. Ken and Mahir connected to each other and to her by different lines with different annotations. Fen with her own particular connection quality. Jesper on the edge, newer, but present.
The lines had descriptions.
Demerti to Elara: *chose repeatedly, every day.*
Ken to Mahir: *shared everything, including the dungeon.*