I spent four days building the map.
Not the fortress. A different map. The kind you built when you had multiple streams of information that weren’t talking to each other, and you needed to find the place where they intersected.
I used the wall of Aerie above the work table, felt paper that Elara had found for me in the storage room, cut into sections: Vivian’s data transactions, documented over three months by Elara’s quiet observation. Zane’s collar architecture, as Caleb had described it and as Zane himself had filled in from memory. Cassin’s research method, extrapolated from the disinformation profile I’d been building. The Phoenix letter from the summit, in Caleb’s translation.
Four streams. Each is internally consistent. Each is pointing in the same general direction.
I neede
