The dispatch wall beside the converted manor still held Juna's chalked note when Hajin passed it on his evening round.
The message read one line only: eat, you forgot again.
A still warm bun waited beneath it on a clean cloth.
He ate it in two bites while walking toward the stair, still tasting her kitchen on the way up.
The converted manor's breach bell struck a third time above the unfinished eastern command wing while he crossed the square.
The building remained the same empty lord's manor Marrick had opened, with only its first conversion stage funded for command use.
Its central roof and route hall stood repaired, while rain-dark scaffolding covered the eastern records rooms beneath an unfinished edge.
Someone had cut through that roof edge without disturbing the secure doors installed along the finished main corridor.
Garret lay beneath the breach bell with one hand closed around its blood-covered striker.
