Silver found Lysander in the remains of Sweettooth Headquarters, standing amid collapsed beams and blackened glass like he belonged there more than the rubble did.
The building still smelled of syrup, smoke, and old machinery. Half the walls were open to the night. Broken monitors flickered weakly. Data slates and shredded paper lay scattered across the floor like fallen leaves.
Lysander turned at the sound of Silver’s footsteps and, for the first time that day, looked genuinely relieved.
“Silver.”
His voice softened.
“I’m glad you came.”
Lysander crossed the ruined office and handed him a data card.
“I thought you’d want what I found on Celeste.”
Silver took it at once, slipping it into a reader tucked into his gauntlet.
“And,” Lysander added with a faint, wry smile, “I confess I’m grateful to speak somewhere private for once.”
His eyes flicked toward the broken windows.
“How is life in the tree?”
Silver loosened his coat with quiet irritation.
“Useful,” he admitted. “Insufferable. Chaotic. Loud enough to make death seem restful. But useful.”
Lysander’s mouth twitched.
“How encouraging.”
Silver looked around the wrecked facility.
“After the apocalypse, perhaps the Council can seize it for study.”
“A charming thought,” Lysander said dryly. “Do try not to sound so pleased about my property damage.”
He gave a low hum and turned slowly, surveying the damage.
“A lot of information was either taken or deleted. But Celeste and the others were definitely here at some point.”
Silver stepped over a shattered terminal.
“Gideon was after them. That’s what caused most of this.”
Lysander looked up toward the gaping ceiling and sighed.
“Well, look at it. It will cost a fortune to repair.”
Silver’s lip curled.
“They’re exactly as bad as I thought. Uncivilised.”
Lysander’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Well, yes,” he said carefully. “But you sound… bitter.”
He turned fully toward him now.
“Did something happen?”
Silver’s jaw tightened.
For a moment he didn’t answer.
Lysander seemed to notice the hesitation and, perhaps wisely, did not press immediately. Instead, he turned back to the ruined desk and lifted a small black case from beneath a fallen beam.
“There was one other thing.”
Silver’s gaze sharpened.
“What?”
Lysander set the case on the desk and opened it.
Inside lay a collar.
Not one of the ordinary suppression collars Silver had seen before.
This one was thinner.
More elegant.
More deliberate.
Black metal curved in a smooth ring, etched with tiny runes so fine they looked almost like lacework. Several small mana nodes sat embedded around the inner band, dull now, but still faintly humming.
Silver stared at it.
“What is that?”
“Interesting, isn’t it?”
“That was not an answer.”
“No,” Lysander said mildly. “But it was a more dramatic beginning.”
He lifted the collar carefully with gloved fingers.
“The Council found several of these in the vaults beneath the stadium while they were clearing it out.”
Silver’s expression changed.
“Beneath the stadium?”
“Mmh.”
Lysander turned the collar slightly, watching the weak light crawl across the runes.
“Apparently, they are prototypes. The early notes suggest some sort of obedience device.”
Silver went very still.
“Mind control?”
“That seems to have been the intention.”
The silence that followed was sharp.
Lysander glanced at him.
“Relax. They don’t work.”
Silver gave him a cold look.
“You tried?”
“Not on anyone unwilling,” Lysander said, sounding faintly offended. “Volunteers. Controlled environment. Legal paperwork. Witnesses. The usual parade of ethical boredom.”
Silver’s eyes remained fixed on the collar.
“And?”
“And nothing. No compulsion. No behavioural alteration. No useful response at all.”
Lysander lowered it back into the case.
“They appear to be based on mana suppression collars, but the design is wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“For one thing, they do not seem properly calibrated for ordinary beings.”
Silver frowned.
“Ordinary beings?”
“Purebloods. Mythics. Hybrids. The obvious groups.”
Lysander tapped one of the runes.
“The theory is sophisticated. The construction is too expensive for nonsense. And yet when placed on actual volunteers, the device produces little more than discomfort, headaches, and one regrettable nosebleed.”
Silver’s gaze narrowed.
“Then who are they meant for?”
“That,” Lysander said softly, “is the interesting question.”
He reached into the case and withdrew a folded fulfilment order, the edges browned from smoke damage.
“The only fulfilment order I could find was for Godiad.”
Silver looked up sharply.
“Godiad ordered these?”
“So it seems.”
Lysander’s voice remained smooth, but his eyes had sharpened.
“Which is odd, don’t you think? Mana suppression technology leaving Sweettooth under Council classification, moving through stadium vaults, and ending with Godiad.”
Silver took the order and scanned it.
His mouth tightened.
“I can look into it.”
“No need.”
Silver glanced up.
Lysander closed the case.
“I have a meeting with the Director on the matter.”
Silver stared at him.
“You’re not going to—”
“Use it?”
Lysander laughed softly.
“Stars, no.”
Silver did not look reassured.
Lysander lifted both hands with refined innocence.
“I have no interest in using defective mind-control collars on people. The Council would have my head for ethics violations, and worse, the paperwork would be endless.”
Silver’s expression stayed flat.
“Ethics. Naturally.”
“Believe it or not, I do possess some.”
“A limited collection, perhaps.”
“Curated,” Lysander corrected.
Silver’s eyes dropped back to the collar.
“And prisoners?”
Lysander paused.
Only briefly.
“Perhaps.”
Silver looked at him.
Lysander’s smile thinned.
“For testing containment, Silver. Not obedience.”
Silver said nothing.
Lysander shut the case with a soft click.
“Do not look at me like that.”
“I haven’t decided how I’m looking at you yet.”
“I can tell. It’s deeply unfair.”
Silver’s gaze lingered on the case a moment longer.
Then Lysander’s voice softened.
“Besides, this is precisely why I want the Director’s opinion. If Godiad ordered them, and if the devices were built from suppression technology, then someone understood something we do not.”
He placed the case aside.
“And I dislike not understanding things.”
Silver’s mouth twisted.
“At last. Something we have in common.”
Lysander studied him again.
The silence changed.
More personal now.
“Silver.”
His voice lowered.
“What happened?”
That was all it took.
Silver snapped.
“She made me kneel.”
The words came out so fast and sharp they almost startled him.
Lysander stilled.
Silver kept going, fury spilling out now that someone understood the weight of it.
“She made me kneel, Lysander. Just like Silas did. Just like that day in the Council Hall.”
His breathing had gone uneven.
“I swore no one would ever do that to me again. No one. And then that—”
He stopped himself before saying Hybrid girl out loud, but the hatred in his tone made the missing words obvious.
Lysander’s face darkened.
He remembered.
Of course he remembered.
He had been there when Silas forced Silver to kneel publicly, turning humiliation into lesson and politics into cruelty.
He had watched Silver shake afterward and pretend he wasn’t shattered.
Lysander stepped closer, voice lowering.
“What did she do?”
Silver looked away, jaw tight.
“She… changed.”
That was the safest word.
“Her dragon heritage reacted to something. She said something in that voice and my body responded before I could stop it.”
He swallowed.
“Instinct. Hierarchy. It was unbearable.”
Lysander’s expression hardened into something cold and protective.
“She’s dangerous.”
Silver laughed bitterly.
“Yes.”
Lysander paced once through the debris.
“A Hybrid radical,” he muttered. “And if we let her keep rising, she’ll encourage Hybrid rebellion whether she means to or not.”
Silver nodded, then rubbed tiredly at his eyes.
“I looked into her more deeply. There’s too much false information. Nothing concrete. Nothing I can bring to Umbranox without looking paranoid.”
Lysander looked at him sharply.
“What sort of information?”
Silver pulled up a second file on his arcbracer.
“Everything around her is wrong. Her birthday. Her age. Her old identification numbers. Authorised by the Council at first—then altered later.”
He looked back at Lysander.
“Not badly altered. Expertly altered. Like someone went into the system years ago and rewrote her.”
Lysander took that in, quiet now.
“…Hacked.”
Silver nodded once.
“Exactly.”
The wind moved through the broken offices, stirring paper and ash.
Lysander was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, “If that’s true, she may be deceiving everyone.”
Silver’s mouth tightened.
“If that is the case, I need to replace her before this gets uglier.”
Lysander folded his arms.
“You mean take command.”
“Yes.”
Silver’s tone cooled, becoming composed again.
“I don’t want to harm her. Not unless I have to. But I do want to contain the damage she could cause.”
He looked at the data reader in Lysander’s hand.
“If I become commander instead, I can keep the Knights respectable while this is investigated.”
Lysander nodded slowly.
“Do what you can.”
He glanced down at the files again.
“In the meantime, I’ll look into Kenaz. If she’s been altered at the Council level, this may go much deeper than just her.”
That seemed to steady Silver a little.
“Thank you.”
He turned to leave, gathering the scattered data cards from the ruined desk on instinct.
His mind was still too full of Celeste’s aura, that awful kneeling moment, and the way everything about her felt wrong in ways he couldn’t prove.
So when he pocketed a data card from the edge of the desk—
he didn’t notice it wasn’t his.
And behind him, Lysander’s screen flickered with old Sweettooth records as Silver stepped back out into the night, more certain than ever that Celeste Astallan needed to be removed from command before she destroyed everything.
Silver didn’t make it halfway back before he opened his arcbracer.
“Bartleby.”
The line connected after a beat.
Bartleby’s face appeared in the projection, mildly tired and already suspicious.
“You have that face.”
Silver kept walking. “What face?”
“The one you do when you’re about to ask for something unreasonable.”
Silver sighed. “Fine. I need information.”
Bartleby leaned back. “On?”
“Celeste. Kenaz.”
Bartleby’s expression changed at once. Not shocked—guarded.
“Why?”
Silver’s jaw tightened. “For the security of Caerfaen.”
Bartleby rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s never a good sign when said in that tone.”
Silver stopped beneath a broken streetlamp and lowered his voice.
“Think about it. A hybrid turns up with a unique core, impossible power, altered records, and somehow everyone just… follows her. It makes no sense. Now she’s a commander.” He exhaled sharply. “I want to be certain she isn’t dangerous.”
Bartleby studied him for a moment.
Then said quietly, “Your mother would know.”
Silver looked away.
“If Umbranox made her Knight Commander, there is no world in which she did it without knowing far more than the rest of us.”
Silver’s shoulders stiffened. “I’ll ask her. But I want anything you can find too.”
Bartleby was silent.
Then: “I’ll see what I can do.”
Silver relaxed slightly.
“But,” Bartleby added, voice firmer now, “nothing invasive.”
Silver frowned. “I thought you were my friend.”
Bartleby raised a brow. “I am.”
“Then why are you protecting her?”
Bartleby’s answer came without hesitation.
“Because I’m her friend too now.”
Silver blinked.
Bartleby held his gaze, steady and unashamed.
“And I’m not betraying her trust.”
That landed harder than Silver expected.
He opened his mouth, ready with something sharp, but Bartleby beat him to it.
“You want my honest opinion?”
Silver didn’t answer, which Bartleby took as permission.
“You’re not doing this because of Caerfaen.”
Silver’s expression hardened. “That’s not fair.”
“No,” Bartleby said. “It’s accurate.”
The projection shifted as Bartleby moved, probably pacing wherever he was.
“You’re rattled. Something happened. And now you’re trying to turn that feeling into an investigation so it looks noble instead of personal.”
Silver’s ears flattened.
“You know what?” he said coldly. “Forget it.”
“I can’t,” Bartleby replied. “Because you’re my best friend, and when you get like this you convince yourself control is the same thing as care.”
Silver went very still.
Bartleby softened only slightly.
“If there’s a genuine threat, I’ll help you. Of course I will. But if this is really about you being angry, embarrassed, or confused, then digging through her life behind her back won’t fix that.”
Silver didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Bartleby watched him for a moment longer, then added, “Talk to your mother. Properly. She knows more. And if you want to know who Celeste is, maybe try asking Celeste when you’re calm enough not to make it a trial.”
Silver laughed once, bitter and humorless.
“Wonderful advice.”
“I know.”
They sat in silence for a second.
Then Bartleby said, gentler now, “For what it’s worth… I don’t think she’s your enemy.”
Silver’s eyes dropped to the cracked pavement.
“That makes one of us.”
Bartleby’s face softened with something like pity.
“No,” he said quietly. “I think it makes two. I think you know that too, and that’s the problem.”
Silver’s throat tightened.
He hated how close Bartleby always got to the truth.
“I’ll send anything public or already archived,” Bartleby said. “Kenaz’s service record. Non-sealed council notices. Nothing more.”
Silver nodded once.
“…Fine.”
“And Silver?”
He didn’t look up. “What.”
“Don’t turn this into a war just because you don’t know what to do with how she makes you feel.”
Silver’s eyes snapped to the projection.
Bartleby gave him no room to deny it.
Then the line cut.
Silver stood alone in the street, the blue light of the dead arcbracer fading in his hand.
For a long moment he said nothing.
Then, through clenched teeth:
“Everyone is suddenly very fond of her.”
But the anger felt thinner now.
Less righteous.
More complicated.
He slipped the arcbracer away and resumed walking, posture stiff, mind burning—not with answers, but with the deeply inconvenient possibility that Bartleby might be right.
