Edras remained behind the table for so long that Kael began to wonder whether the question had reached some point the structure simply did not know how to process.
Until then, the custodian had always answered quickly, even when he needed to consult contracts, maps, or records belonging to men who had been dead for centuries.
His function could hesitate before a contradiction, but not before information.
Now, however, no inscription appeared over the table, neither of his eyes traced invisible lines, and no procedural answer came to fill the silence.
There was only that strange body, assembled from parts of different officers, staring at Kael as though he had asked something that did not exist within any of the categories it had spent one hundred and fifty years learning to recognize.
Sylphie noticed the difference too.
She let the roots continue working on their own through the first sets of remains and returned to the clearing, standing beside Kael without touching Edras.
