The transformation into The Lonely Saviour was now a familiar, if unsettling, ritual.
In the antechamber of The Aethelstan Club & Social Foundation, Foster applied the final touches to his disguise, ensuring his tousled hair and academic glasses were perfect.
He paid the fifteen-dollar rental fee for the Heatherstone Room, a name that evoked a sense of solidity that felt at odds with the club's opulence.
The Heatherstone Room was, indeed, different from the Oak Room. It was paneled in a dark, almost black wood, with a massive fireplace that held a low, electric simulacrum of a real fire.
The air smelled of beeswax and old leather. As the others filed in, he observed their familiar, yet altered, appearances.
The Anchor entered first, his provided conservative jacket and false beard giving him the air of a severe academic.
His gold-rimmed glasses swept the room, lingering on Foster for a fraction of a second longer than necessary before he took his seat, steepling his fingers. Foster thought.
_He is assessing. Every meeting, he recalibrates his diagnosis of us._
Next was The Quill, a whirlwind of provided velvet and dramatic flair.
His wig of dark curls was even more extravagant than last time, and he moved with a practiced, theatrical grace that seemed to mock the room's solemnity.
He gave a slight, performative bow. "The Heatherstone! A room with a voice, I think. It whispers of older conversations."
Finally, the member with the blank alias arrived. Mia, her vibrant hair hidden under a simple chestnut-brown wig, wore a high-necked, modest dress that seemed to frustrate her natural energy.
She offered a small, careful smile to the room before sitting, her hands folded neatly in her lap.
Foster saw the disappointment in her eyes already. She had been hoping for more than just "important talk."
"Shall we begin?" The Lonely Saviour's flat, neutral accent cut through the quiet.
"The city's machinery continues its turn. The mill homicide remains officially unsolved. A tragedy, but one the public seems willing to forget, provided the wheels of industry keep spinning."
For the next hour, the conversation was a masterclass in significant ordinariness.
The Anchor spoke of systemic inefficiencies in the city's new waste management contracts, his analysis so precise and dry it could have put a insomniac to sleep.
Foster contributed observations about the political pressure surrounding urban development projects, carefully omitting his own role as Andrew Garfield.
The Quill lamented the decline of public art funding, framing it as a "starvation of the civic soul."
Mia listened, her initial polite interest gradually wilting into a profound, barely concealed boredom.
She fidgeted with the cuff of her dress, her eyes glazing over during a particularly dense monologue from The Anchor about municipal bond yields.
_This is it?_ she thought, despairing.
_This is the grand secret? Tax codes and garbage routes? I might as well be at one of Mother's charity luncheons._
Foster felt the meeting slipping into irrelevance. He had to pivot. Carefully, he wove a new thread into the conversation.
"Efficiency and art are vital," he interjected, cutting off The Quill's poetic lament.
"But they are the visible layers. There are other forces at work. I continue to study cases of… erasure. Not just of data, but of moments."
He decided to play his card, fully.
"A violent event, like the Davidson case in the alley off Regent and Sycamore, where the evidence of the act itself was surgically removed from reality. Not hidden. Un-written."
He reconfigured the story, presenting it as a theoretical puzzle, a philosophical curiosity.
"What mechanism, not just technical but conceptual, could achieve such a thing?"
The room was silent.
The Anchor's eyebrows furrowed slightly above his glasses. Mia perked up, the spark of curiosity finally igniting in her orange-flame eyes.
It was The Quill who broke the silence, his theatrical tone now layered with a new, unsettling gravity.
"A mechanism? You presume a machine. But some effects are not born of gears and levers. What you describe… the surgical removal of a moment… it sounds less like a technology and more like a prerogative. An authority."
The word landed in the room like a physical object.
_Authorities?_ Foster's mind reeled.
_What does that mean? Wielded by people?_
It was a concept entirely new to him, terrifying and electrifying.
But he kept his face a mask of neutral comprehension, nodding slowly as if The Quill had merely stated a obvious fact.
He could feel The Anchor's gaze on him, probing for a crack in the facade.
Grayson's mind, behind the calm exterior, was a storm of calculation.
_Authorities._
He'd heard the term whispered in the most secretive corridors of the High Ancient Mandate, always in hushed, theoretical tones.
A myth, a conjecture—the idea that certain individuals could wield conceptual power as others wielded influence or wealth.
He had dismissed it as superstition, the kind of thing or belief the old families might cling to. But the confidence in The Quill's voice was absolute.
_How does he know?_
Grayson's businessman's mind analyzed the risk. If this was real, it was a variable of catastrophic potential.
The H.A.M. was playing with steam and pressure. This was playing with the laws of physics themselves.
_I had never seen evidence, so I had refused to believe in something so... unscientific. I have vast resources as a H.A.M member, yet, this is beyond our collective confirmed data._
His brows furrowed slightly as he looked at Jacob.
_Who is The Quill? He seems to have access to wider networks of information and makes the H.A.M look like we're floating atop the surface of an incredibly vast and deep ocean._
He didn't bother glancing at Mia, her wide-eyed confusion was a given. She was a consumer of mysteries, not an analyst of threats.
Mia's boredom vanished, replaced by a dizzying thrill.
_Authorities? Like… magical powers?_
Her imagination conjured images of wizards and fairy tales.
_People having the authority itself? Just what on earth is this theatrical person saying?_
But then she looked at The Lonely Saviour and The Anchor.
Their composed, almost weary acceptance of this bombshell sent a wave of shame through her.
They weren't surprised. This was part of the world they moved in, a world she was clearly too naive to understand.
She sank back in her chair, wishing she could disappear or the ornate rug would swallow her whole.
_They all see me as a child who ran headfirst into a war room._
Jacob observed their reactions with detached interest.
He had their attention now. He continued, his words deliberate and abstract.
"The authority of Concealment, for instance. It would not merely hide an object or a fact. It could hide the very concept of victory from an army, leaving them with the sensation of defeat without knowing why."
He clearly was prideful at this moment.
"It could hide an opportunity from a man, leaving him only with the ashes of what might have been. It could even… hide itself. Making its wielder appear as nothing more than a face in the crowd."
_If such a thing exists,_
Foster thought, his blood running cold.
_The danger is immeasurable._
His mind, ever the detective, immediately began extrapolating.
_Then there must be authorities for other things._
He was dying to ask a dozen questions—How? Why? Who?—but he could not.
He was The Lonely Saviour, who had brought this topic to the table. To ask for basics would be to reveal his entire persona as a fraud.
He sat in frustrated silence, his mind screaming.
It was The Anchor who spoke, his voice cutting through the tension with clinical precision.
"A fascinating hypothesis, Quill. But hypotheticals are the currency of philosophers. You speak with the conviction of experience. How, precisely, did you arrive at this… verification?"
Foster felt a surge of suppressed delight and undiluted gratitude. He had been saved from having to break character.
Jacob waved a dismissive, velvet-clad hand.
"One chances upon many strange things in gatherings of people with… shared interests. I witnessed a similar phenomenon."
He continued.
"A speaker, mid-oration, seemed to have his very point stripped from him. The crowd grew restless and confused, unable to grasp the core of his argument."
Mia's eyes were wide, she leaned in. This was the fantastical she she'd been craving.
"He was mid-sentence, and the very intent of his words seemed to curdle and vanish from the air before they reached the audience. It was a most peculiar effect."
Jacob however had witnessed this on a day the said authority holder almost attacked his father during a speech at the Royal Parliament.
He had deftly misdirected them, painting himself as a political observer rather than the son of a noble who was likely the intended target.
The meeting concluded soon after, the air thick with unspoken questions and seismic revelations.
As they filed out separately, one question hung in the silence, asked by no one but burning in the mind of each:
How does a person come to wield such an Authority?
Foster would not ask, lest he shatter his carefully constructed omniscience.
Grayson would not ask, for it would admit a gap in his formidable knowledge to a man he considered a dangerous variable.
Mia would not ask, too terrified of reinforcing her image as the ignorant novice.
And Jacob,for all his witnessing, truly did not know.
They departed the Heatherstone Room one by one, each carrying a new, terrifying piece of the puzzle, and no idea where to find the next.