Chapter 15 · The File With Dad's Name

The archive room smelled like old paper and something sharp underneath, maybe disinfectant or blood that never quite washed out of the floorboards. Kai pressed his palm against the stone wall and tried to breathe without pulling at the bandages wrapped tight around his ribs. The trial had ended three hours ago.

Mossan had shoved a needle full of something cold into his side, muttered about fractured bones and stupid heroics, then told him to sleep. Kai didn't sleep. He came here instead, to the backroom Mossan said the older clans used to store bloodline records before they moved everything to locked vaults.

The kind of place people forgot about. The kind of place where you could hide things you didn't want found.

The file was thin. Brown cover, no label, shoved between two ledgers thick enough to stop a blade. Kai pulled it free and flipped it open. His dad's name sat at the top of the first page in clean block letters. Lin Hao. Citizen contractor. Gate scholar, third clearance. Reported missing after incident DE-7 lockdown. Presumed terminated.

Kai's hands didn't shake. That surprised him.