The guildhall had stopped pretending to be calm.
When Inigo and Lyra pushed through its doors, the first thing they noticed was the sound: not shouting, not panic, but voices forced too low, every syllable carrying strain. Runners darted across polished floors, their boots leaving smudges that nobody paused to clean. The scribes' quills scratched like teeth on bone.
The great scrying bowls still pulsed with ugly light—Stonebridge split into halves, Marrowport steaming under its own ruin. One clerk wiped her eyes openly while another scratched her notes until blood from her knuckle smeared the parchment.
Guildmaster Thorne stood above it all, sleeves rolled, jaw like stone dragged from a quarry. He looked older than the day before, as though each red circle on the map of Eldrath had added a year.
"Inigo. Lyra." His voice cut the noise without needing to rise. "You saw the smoke from here?"
Lyra nodded once. "We saw. We heard."
"And you know who."
