Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The board's response came at five-forty, twenty minutes before the expedited order's deadline, a single line from Thorne's number that made Josie's hands go momentarily unsteady with something closer to relief than she'd let herself feel all day.
Kestrel does not get to run this one alone.
Declan read it over her shoulder and let out a breath she hadn't realized he'd been holding either, the two of them sitting shoulder to shoulder on the edge of her bed with a duffel bag full of half-folded clothes forgotten beside them.
"Ten a.m.," she said. "Twelve hours."
"Twelve hours to build the strongest version of what you already have. He was already reaching for his phone, mind clearly moving to the next practical step. "Get some sleep if you can. I'll be outside your door tonight, and outside the hearing room tomorrow.
Whatever you need from me before then, say it now."
"Just. Stay a little longer. Before you go stand outside."
He did.
She didn't sleep much that night, but it was a different kind of sleeplessness than three weeks ago, not dread exactly, something closer to the specific alertness of a person preparing for a fight she finally had the tools to win.
She spent an hour rereading her own evidence by lamplight, checking every number a final time, rehearsing the exact order she'd present it in until the words felt less like a plea and more like a verdict already decided.
Room 214 looked different with a review board seated instead of the Dean alone: five senior Wardens Josie didn't recognize, Thorne among them, his expression carefully neutral in a way she suspected cost him effort, and at the center, an older woman introduced only as Regent Voss, whose expression gave away nothing throughout the proceedings' opening minutes, weighing everything with the specific neutrality of someone who'd sat through enough Covenant business to trust nothing at face value.
Kestrel sat at the far end of the table, composed, unhurried, exactly as he'd been at every previous meeting, and Josie understood, watching him settle into his chair like a man confident of the outcome, that he still believed his version of events would hold.
"Miss Calloway," Regent Voss said, once the board had been seated and the allegation formally read into record. "You've submitted evidence disputing the sign-out log's accuracy. Present it."
Josie stood. Her hands were steady now, the folder open in front of her, every tab labeled in her own careful hand, and she felt, for the first time in three weeks, entirely in command of the room she was standing in.
"The special collections archive assigns control numbers sequentially," she said, pitching her voice to carry the way she'd watched Kestrel pitch his at the lectern three weeks ago, without needing to raise it.
"Every legitimate access gets the next number in sequence, no exceptions, no gaps.
I confirmed this against the department's own internal procedures manual, which I've included as exhibit one. "
She laid out her own five legitimate visits, control numbers listed, each one countersigned by Dr. Ferris, whose own signed affidavit sat behind them as exhibit two, and watched several board members follow along on their own copies, pens tracking the sequence line by line.
"The sixth access, the one alleged in the misconduct complaint, carries control number two-two-two-four. She let that sit a moment, watching it land across the board's attention. "My own fourth legitimate visit carries the number two-two-two-three. My fifth carries two-two-two-six.
There is no gap between those two numbers in the actual sequence (I confirmed this with the records office directly, exhibit three), which means the alleged sixth access was assigned a control number that mathematically cannot exist between two numbers I already hold, legitimately, on record."
A murmur moved through the board, quiet, but Josie caught Regent Voss's expression sharpen, actual attention rather than practiced neutrality, her pen going still against the paper in front of her.
"Someone fabricated this slip," Josie continued, "using a number they either guessed at without checking the sequence, or inserted with access to the numbering system that goes well beyond an ordinary clerk's clearance.
Either way, the numbers themselves prove the sixth access never happened. Not my word.
The mathematics."
She looked, deliberately, at Kestrel, meeting his eyes across the table for the first time since the meeting began.
"I'd like the board to ask who currently holds clearance to alter or insert entries into the special collections numbering system," she said.
"Because whoever forged this slip either made an amateur's mistake, or had access high enough that checking the sequence never occurred to them as a risk worth taking. "
Kestrel's composure held, outwardly, but Josie caught the small tell she'd learned to watch for over three weeks: a stillness in his hands, folded on the table, that hadn't been there a moment before.
"An interesting theory," he said, mild. "Though hardly proof of who—"
"It's not a theory," Regent Voss cut in, flat, final, the first real edge Josie had heard in her voice all morning.
"It's arithmetic, Provost, and arithmetic doesn't require your endorsement to be true.
She turned to the board's recording clerk.
"Enter the control-number discrepancy into record as exhibit four.
This board will independently verify the numbering-system access logs before any further action is taken against Miss Calloway's standing. "
"There's a further matter the board should be aware of," Josie said, before anyone could move to close that portion of the hearing.
"The material at the center of this dispute (the box I legitimately accessed, five times, properly recorded) relates to a Level 4 sealed record from twenty-three years ago.
A student named Marianne Faircross, whose disappearance from this university was never formally explained on any record I've been permitted to see. "
A different kind of stillness moved through the room at that, several board members exchanging glances Josie couldn't fully read.
"I'd like the board to consider," she continued, "whether the urgency behind this forged accusation has less to do with my work-study hours, and considerably more to do with what that sealed record might reveal if a full, independent review were finally permitted."
Kestrel's jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, and Regent Voss's gaze moved between Josie and the Provost with an expression Josie couldn't quite name, but that felt, unmistakably, like the beginning of a different question being asked entirely.
"I'd also like to note," Josie added, before anyone could redirect the conversation, "that I mailed a full copy of this evidence to an address outside this university's administrative reach, before this hearing.
Not out of distrust of this board specifically.
Out of experience with how quickly evidence has disappeared behind locked doors in this building over the last three weeks. "
That landed harder than she'd expected, several board members' faces shifting at once, and Thorne, at the far end, allowed himself the smallest, driest ghost of a smile before schooling it back into neutrality.
Regent Voss studied Josie for a long moment, something that might, in a different context, have passed for respect.
"Noted," she said. "And prudent, given recent events this board is only now becoming fully aware of.
She turned to the room at large. "The expedited withdrawal order is rescinded, pending full investigation into the forgery's origin.
Miss Calloway's archive access is reinstated, effective immediately.
This board will also, separately, review the circumstances surrounding the sealed record referenced today. I make no promises about what that review will conclude. I do promise it will happen."
Josie sat back down, her hands finally, fully steady, and did not look at Kestrel again, because she'd already gotten everything from this room that she'd come for, and looking at him now would only cost her something she'd rather keep for herself.
Beside her, though she didn't turn to check, she felt Ferris let out a long, quiet breath of his own, and somewhere near the door, though she didn't look there either, she could feel Declan's presence like a hand steady at her back.