There was a particular kind of quiet that only existed in rooms meant to be forgotten.
Not silence. Not truly. The annex off the archive breathed in its own way: the soft creak of shelves settling under the weight of time, the dry rasp of dust shifting in corners, the faint rustle of old memories left undisturbed for too long.
Kitsune hesitated on the threshold. The air inside the room felt denser somehow, like it resisted entry. Like it remembered more than it should.
"Cozy," he muttered, stepping in after Lafayette. His boots echoed softly on the stone floor, even though he tried to walk light. Calia padded beside him without a sound, nose twitching with interest.
Lafayette didn't respond. He moved through the space with an ease Kitsune envied. No hesitation. No doubt. His fingers skimmed across a row of aged ledgers, pausing only briefly before plucking a dark green volume from the shelf. It didn't look like much, but Lafayette held it like it was something heavy. Sacred, almost.
"This," he said, "is the staff register. Everyone who ever worked in the palace is in here. Names. Roles. Reassignments. Dismissals."
"Deaths?" Kitsune asked.
Lafayette paused. "Only the ones someone bothered to record."
Kitsune's jaw shifted, but he said nothing more.
The ledger was thick, its spine cracked and stiff from age. Lafayette set it on a nearby table and opened it with careful hands. The pages inside were filled with fine script, lines upon lines of names, too many to process at a glance.
Kitsune leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching Lafayette scan each page like he already knew what he was looking for.
"You don't even have to search," Kitsune said quietly. "You already know her name, don't you?"
Lafayette's gaze didn't leave the page. "I suspected. But names are dangerous things. I don't speak them unless I'm certain."
He tapped the page with two fingers. "Marah Veil. She was assigned to the prince in the months before the rebellion. Personal attendant. High clearance. Full access to his chambers. She would've known everything."
Kitsune stepped closer, his eyes landing on the entry. Just ink on paper. But somehow, it made everything feel real in a way it hadn't before.
"She was dismissed?"
Lafayette nodded. "Two days after the uprising failed. No charges. No punishment. Just quietly let go."
"Why?" Kitsune asked. "If she was close to him, wouldn't she have..."
"Been executed?" Lafayette finished. "Probably. Which is why she wasn't."
Kitsune blinked.
Lafayette flipped the page slowly. "There are only a few reasons someone gets let go without question. Either she made a deal, or someone in power decided she knew too much to kill."
Kitsune stared at the page, lips pressed thin.
"She was relocated," Lafayette continued. "Linhaven. Small fishing town on the coast. Neutral. Isolated."
Kitsune said nothing. He just stared at the name, again and again.
Calia nudged his leg gently with her nose, and only then did Kitsune blink and pull himself back to the present.
"I need to find her," he said.
Lafayette closed the book gently, not looking up. "You're not the only one who might be looking for her. And if she's alive, she's not going to trust you. Or me."
Kitsune's lips curled. "I'm very charming, actually."
"You're a known thief and former rebel associate with a flair for dramatics and a trail of bounty posters stretching halfway to the coast."
"So you have seen the posters," Kitsune said, a little too brightly.
Lafayette gave him a flat look. "You're not going alone. That's not a suggestion."
Kitsune straightened, about to argue, but stopped. Not because he agreed. But because something in Lafayette's voice had changed. Less command. More concern.
"I'll go," Lafayette added after a moment, like he was still convincing himself. "Not because I want to. Because this doesn't end here. And I've had enough ghosts roaming this palace already."
Kitsune looked at him. Really looked at him. Not as the Duke. Not as the man constantly standing in his way. But as someone who had clearly lost more than he was willing to admit.
"All right," he said. "We go together."
Calia gave a soft bark, tail thumping once in what sounded suspiciously like approval.
The ledger was left on the table, closed but not locked away. The name Marah Veil now lived in both their minds. A whisper from the past. A woman who might hold the thread that unraveled everything.
Outside, the palace hummed with the quiet noise of another day beginning. Footsteps in distant corridors. Voices half-heard. Nothing had changed.