The south infirmary smelled like pine and boiled linen. Liora stood at a writing table with three files open and a glass of water she hadn't touched. Dorian waited two steps back with his hands folded, the kind of still that makes rooms feel less nervous.
"Plain language," Liora said. "No theory. No blame. Start."
I gave her the night in the order it happened. The teeth sticking, the breath pulling out of the hall, the smell that wore wet leaves and wrong. The leaper on the wall. Cael's rise under the jump. My point used as a convincer and not a knife. The loose bolt in the track, the tap on the vane, the chain team, the net. I said "we" when it had been "I" and "he." I said "we" when it had been "us" and "them." I didn't fill the quiet with guesses.
