"The man who arranged it," Ryke said. "Do we know who he was."
Corva looked at him.
"He died forty years ago," she said. "His family's line died with him — he had no children. Whatever position he was protecting, it died too, eventually, the way positions built on advantage without substance always do."
"Then he's not the threat," Silo said. From the end of the corridor. He'd been there throughout, the wall-position. "Whatever he was, he's gone."
"Yes," Corva said. "He's gone." She paused. "But the method isn't."
The corridor waited.
"Someone used it once," Corva said. "Found it effective. And the correspondence—" She looked at the folder. "Documents the method. Not by name, not as a manual. But detailed enough that someone who understood what they were reading would understand what
