NEVA POV
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Garrick Vane didn't arrive like a man who'd been caught.
He arrived like a man arriving at a meeting he'd scheduled himself — composed, unhurried, flanked by two members of the Aris inner council whose presence felt less like backup and more like witnesses he'd brought specifically to watch him fail with dignity.
I recognized him before he was fully through the gate. Twenty-two years of seeing this man at council functions, at the edges of family gatherings, never once warm, never once cruel either — just careful, the particular carefulness of someone managing every room he entered like a transaction.
"Neva."
"Garrick." I watched something flicker across his face at the absence of any title.
"I imagine you have questions."
"I imagine you have answers you've been rehear
