The Scrivener came to Verissan without bells.
No one rang for her. There were no emptied streets, no carriage the city held its breath to watch.
Alistair only learned she had come at all from the way the council building changed around her.
It changed the way a house changes when an unwanted relative arrives, and everyone quietly agrees not to be the first to mention it.
The minor nobility spoke about the sealed wing the way Caelmari spoke about everything that frightened them.
Quietly, indirectly, and with their hands kept flat on the table where everyone could see them.
"They've opened the west wing," a viscount murmured at the Auber salon, not quite to anyone. "The sealed one. They only ever open it when the Scrivener sits."
"Mira Solenne," said another man, and then looked as if he wanted the name back in his mouth. He reached for his glass, just to have something to do with his hand.
