The Ancients didn't keep their people in the castle district, which told Trafalgar something before he'd met a single one of them.
Their compound sat in the third ring behind a barrier of its own, an older dome built inside the newer one, the way a family keeps one room in the house that nobody's allowed to touch. The stone had gone dark with age and nobody had bothered to bring the shine back. The guards at the gate wore armour that was at least two centuries out of fashion, and they wore it like it had never gone out of fashion at all.
"They built their own wall," Rhosyn said, tipping her head back to look at the top of it.
Trafalgar handed his seal to the guard and waited while the man read it twice. 'Inside the city, behind their own barrier, with their own soldiers. A second house pretending to be a faction.'
