Kirana stayed at the whiteboard after Ty and the Demon King walked out.
The room became quiet in the way laboratories became quiet after dangerous people finished pretending they had only asked simple questions. The marker still sat in her hand. Coffee cooled beside the soul scanner. Half the board was filled with colors, arrows, crossed-out terms, and one ugly circle around Ty's name.
She stared at that circle longer than she liked.
Ty was not a normal placement problem.
Most souls entered a vessel the way water entered a cup. Shape mattered. Cracks mattered. The cup could be too small, too fragile, too poisoned, or too foreign, but the idea remained simple enough for soldiers and students to understand.
Ty was a key trying to sit inside a lock that had been built by several dead hands with different intentions.
That was the part Kirana refused to say aloud while the Demon King stood in the room.
