Caspian
My father’s letter arrived on the second morning of my confinement.
A steward passed it through the door without comment. The Ashford crest had been pressed into dark green wax, unbroken despite every checkpoint between the estate and my new room.
I turned the envelope over in my hands. My father had sent the cuffs for the formal in a box lined with velvet. He had sent this on ordinary paper.
The room held a narrow bed, a writing table, and a false window cut into the stone. Water-light rose through it from a channel below, pale enough that I had to sit close to read.
Caspian—
I have filed a formal inquiry into conditions at Zenith Tower. My Council seat and the Ashford family’s standing require them to accept it. They do not require the Council to answer quickly or honestly.
I remained silent at the formal when I should have spoken. This filing does not correct that. It is simply the first useful action available to me, and I intend to pursue it whether or not it alters your opinion of me.
If there are specific questions that should be included, send them through the same courier.
—M.A.
I read the letter again.
My father’s handwriting had not changed. Every letter stood straight, evenly spaced, with no ink allowed to gather at the ends of words. Near the middle, however, he had crossed out a sentence hard enough to roughen the paper before writing the next one beneath it.
I held the page toward the water-light. The discarded words remained illegible.
Once, I would have spent hours trying to recover them. My father’s approval had always been scarce enough to make every hidden scrap of it feel valuable. But whatever he had chosen not to say mattered less than the filing already carrying his name through the Council.
He had acted without knowing whether it would work, something I had never seen him do.
I wanted to show the letter to Astra.
The impulse came before I remembered the locked corridor between us. I pictured her reading beside the false window, one thumb resting against the crossed-out line. She would ask what I wanted the letter to mean. I could already hear the question.
I folded it along its original creases and set it on the table.
The writing box in the drawer contained two sheets of paper, a narrow pen, and a stoppered bottle of ink. My new restrictions had not extended to correspondence. The Ashford name had protected that much even here.
I sat down and began.
Father—
I stopped there.
At the estate, I had addressed him as Sir until I was old enough to understand that other sons did not. After that, I used Father because it was expected and never because the word felt easy.
I left it.
I received your letter. If the inquiry is to matter, do not let them answer only for my treatment. There are four of us under review, and there are residents here whose families were told nothing at all.
Ask for the complete record of Delphine Moreau. She was removed from Zenith Hall after her Mark was declared a Dimming. She is alive in Wing C. Readers damaged her Mark during what they called a recovery attempt. The request to move her to the infirmary afterward was denied.
I paused. The image of Delphine leaning between Astra and the healer had stayed with me: too thin, wrist wrapped, still finding enough breath to warn Astra not to disappear.
I dipped the pen again.
Ask for every order associated with Sadie Corwin’s removal from Wing C. Her file closed the following morning. No transfer entry has been found, and no destination, escort, or receiving facility was recorded. Do not accept “resolved” as an answer.
Request an independent healer for Kieran Marsh. His decline has accelerated since we arrived, and the Tower continues to treat his condition as evidence before it treats him as a patient.
The pen hovered above the page.
My father could have used his inquiry to demand my release and leave the others unnamed. A month ago, I might have mistaken that for love. Now the thought made my stomach turn.
If the Council offers to release me alone, refuse.
I read the sentence twice. Then I added:
Do not spend the Ashford name on me alone.
I signed Caspian, sanded the wet ink, and folded the letter.
There was no wax in the writing box. I had no crest to press into it even if there had been. I wrote my father’s name across the outside and knocked once against the door.
The steward returned after several minutes.
“This goes by the same courier,” I said.
He held out his hand. “Outgoing correspondence is inspected.”
“Not correspondence carried under the Ashford seal.”
“Your reply has no seal.”
I met his eyes. “The letter that arrived under it invited an answer. If the Council prefers to explain to Magnus Ashford why his private courier was interrupted, ask them to put that explanation in writing.”
The steward considered the folded page, then took it.
“I can promise only that it reaches the courier.”
“That will do.”
The door closed. The lock followed.
The steward’s footsteps faded toward the courier stair. I folded my father’s letter back into its envelope and slid it beneath the thin mattress.
Then I sat beside the false window with my thumb resting over Astra’s line and waited for the midday bell.