The report reached my desk before breakfast.
That was not the interesting part.
Reports had been reaching my desk all week. Instructor comments. Medical revisions. Updated dorm restrictions. Quiet warnings disguised as academy notices. A handwritten apology from a Gold Hall student who had apparently remembered self-preservation after insulting Ren too close to my door.
Astral Zenith had discovered that Cedric Valdrake, fallen heir or not, remained a dangerous name to put into casual paperwork.
No.
What mattered was the way this report had arrived.
No servant knock. No seal pressed into wax. No official sigil from Orvyn's tower or Veylan's combat office.
The folded page sat on the center of my desk as if the room had grown it overnight.
Ren stood beside the tea tray with both hands wrapped around the handle so tightly his knuckles had turned white. His humming had stopped somewhere between the threshold and the carpet.
"Did you touch it?" I asked.
"No, young master."
