The drawer closed that night, and Kenji couldn't fall asleep. Gaius's words kept circling in his head. The tense atmosphere of the council chamber. His own back reflected in the Yoken. Lina's quiet, certain voice saying "I don't understand, but I think it's wrong." They passed through his mind again and again in sequence. But no matter how much he thought about it, nothing new emerged. Just circles. Near dawn, when the window began turning gray, his consciousness finally dropped—or so he thought, but his eyes were already open. Completely awake. He didn't feel like he'd slept at all. Yet his mind was oddly clear. That peculiar floating sensation that comes from incomplete sleep. (Well, whatever.) Kenji got up. He changed clothes and stepped into the corridor. It was still too early for the smell of tree-sea mushroom stew to leak from the Sumikamaritei—the fortress's communal dining hall. The savory aroma of black bread baking wasn't there yet either. The stone corridor of the fo