I made it halfway to the town hall before I had to stop.
There was a low stone wall beside a baker's shop. I rested my left hand on it and waited for the pulling sensation in my thigh to settle.
My right arm hung inside my coat.
The prosthetic wasn't particularly heavy. It was attached to damaged flesh above a newly made elbow. Every uneven step tugged at the fitting. The weight kept trying to turn my shoulder, and my body kept compensating.
A woman came out of the bakery with a basket against her hip.
Her eyes passed over my hair, then the arm.
"Do you need someone fetched, my lord?"
"No. Thank you."
She remained beside the doorway.
I straightened before she could ask again.
The town hall stood beyond the square.
Mira found me sitting on a bench outside her office.
She stopped with a ledger beneath one arm and two clerks following close behind.
I shifted forward on the bench. My thigh tightened.
Mira handed the ledger to the nearest clerk.
"The warehouse allotments can wait. Put the revised figures on my desk. And tell the timber merchant that if he wants payment, he needs to deliver."
The clerks left.
She waited until I had stood before speaking again.
"You could have sent for a carriage."
"It wasn't far."
Mira opened her office door and let me enter first. The room smelled of paper and tea. Bundles of correspondence occupied the chairs. A map of the garrison district had been pinned to the wall behind her desk, with new marks around the western sector.
I looked at them.
Mira noticed.
"We're already arguing over which supply roads need extending."
"Good."
She cleared a chair.
I sat carefully, lowering myself with my left hand on the desk.
Mira put a cup of water within reach without commenting on it.
"What do you need?"
"A comm crystal. First the factory in the capital, then Kaltbach."
"The relay room is downstairs."
I looked toward the door.
Mira pulled a small bell across her desk and rang it.
"We'll bring the connection here."
I took the water.
The cup remained in my left hand.
The technician brought a portable brass housing. He adjusted two small regulators while Mira supplied the factory's registered address.
The crystal brightened, faded, then settled into a steady blue.
A voice answered beneath the hiss.
"Voralberg Magitek. Military dispatch or commercial?"
"Kaspar. I need Asena."
Something scraped on the other end.
"One moment, my lord."
Mira waited until the technician confirmed the connection, then gathered a stack of papers.
"I'll be next door."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. My three-day report has been waiting almost three weeks."
"I'll read it."
She closed the door behind her.
For a while, the crystal carried nothing but the distant sound of the factory. Metal striking metal. A raised voice asking where someone had put a regulator housing.
Then a door shut.
"Kaspar?"
"I'm here."
"Where?"
"Grenzheim. The town hall."
"Not the infirmary?"
"I've been allowed to walk."
A silence followed.
I could hear her breathing.
"Augustin is in Kaltbach," she said at last. "If you were calling for him."
"I need to speak to you too."
"He arrived with the first teams. They've been working since they got there. Varen sent soldiers to reinforce the arrangement."
"What arrangement?"
"The one where your father keeps his troops away from the town."
I looked at the closed door.
"Has there been trouble?"
"Not yet. Augustin says the soldiers are there to make sure it stays that way." Her voice sharpened. "Though Roderich seems occupied enough in the south without finding another reason to march north."
The crystal hummed.
"Kaspar. How are you?"
"I'm recovering."
"The reports also say you nearly died, Kaspar." She paused.
I looked down at the dark fingers resting against my knee.
"I lost my right arm."
Nothing came through the crystal.
"Above the elbow," I added. "They fitted a prosthetic. I'm still learning to use it."
A chair moved on the other end.
I wished I could see her.
"Aunt?"
"I'm here."
"They saved the rest. My leg is healing. Brennan says I'll recover."
"Your arm. How much pain?"
"It's manageable."
"Kaspar."
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the desk.
"Some days are worse."
She exhaled slowly.
"I knew you'd come back hurt. Every night I asked for you to walk in and tell me I'd worried over nothing."
My throat tightened.
"You... worried over nothing."
"You know that I can still hit you, right? I'm still your aunt."
I smiled at her anger.
"The operation succeeded," I said. "We held the ridge. The ammunition you sent made a difference. Thom told me the first resupply arrived before they—"
"Oh, go fuck yourself."
I stopped.
The factory beyond her went quiet.
"I'm not asking about the ammunition," she said. "I don't care whether the copper balls arrived in time for you to put a hole in an elf. I'm asking whether my nephew is going to come home."
"Yes."
"Alive, and whether there's anything left of him when he gets here."
I tried to find something to say that wouldn't make it worse.
There was nothing.
"I'm glad you're alive," she said. Her voice had become rough. "Let me be glad you're alive before you start thanking me for producing something."
I lowered my head.
"All right."
She asked about the fitting. Whether the skin beneath it was closing properly. Whether I was eating. Whether I could sleep without waking in pain.
When I told her I could lift a cup, she asked which hand I had used.
"The left."
"Then say that."
"The right can do it too."
"And put it down?"
"Sometimes."
There was a rustle of paper.
"I'm sending a friend who works on upper-arm assemblies."
"Brennan has people."
"Then they can speak to each other."
"Ask your friend what's inside it," I said. "The glyphs are finer than anything we put in the pistols. Half of them run under the plates where I can't follow them. If I could get it on a bench and open it—"
The rustling stopped.
"You are not opening anything attached to a wound that hasn't closed."
"I didn't say now."
She let out a breath. "Get it wrong and you won't break a cup. You'll tear the fitting out of your shoulder."
By the time she finally allowed the conversation to end, I had promised to eat properly, obey Brennan's restrictions, send updates that contained actual information, and stop treating the loss of an arm as a minor inconvenience.
"And write to Eren," she said.
"I will."
"He keeps asking whether the new hand can punch through a wall."
A breath escaped me.
"I haven't tested it."
"Keep it that way."
The crystal dimmed.
The Kaltbach connection took longer.
Two northern relays had to be persuaded to cooperate. A military operator asked for authorization, then asked again after hearing my name.
By the time Augustin answered, the water in my cup was gone.
"Kaspar."
"Augustin."
"It is good to hear your voice."
"So everyone keeps telling me."
Paper moved near his crystal.
"I have several reports for you. The first production building is operational in a limited capacity. We have roof repairs continuing over the eastern section, but the fitting benches are producing usable components."
"That was fast."
"The local workers have been determined to prove themselves."
For the first time since I had entered the town hall, I could hear genuine pleasure in someone's voice.
"Some of the heavier work is proceeding at nearly twice the rate we expected."
"Mara?"
"Has become indispensable. She knows who is best at what."
"And the town?"
"Fed. Guarded." He paused. "You would be surprised how much faster construction proceeds when the workers aren't wondering whether they'll need to abandon it and fight something before supper."
Augustin continued.
"The housing is our next constraint. I have a proposal."
"Augustin. There's something more urgent."
The paper stopped moving.
"How secure is this connection?"
"It is the military line installed by Varen's detachment."
I waited.
"The officers call it secure. I cannot tell you how much access the military has at the intervening stations."
"Can anyone hear you there?"
"One moment."
A muffled conversation followed. A chair scraped. Then a door closed.
"Not now."
"Then we keep it short."
"Understood."
I rested my left palm on the desk.
"During the attack, I got elven military intelligence."
"What kind?"
"The kind that changes our timetable."
The blue light remained steady.
"There is a reinforcement window approaching. If they decide humanity has become a serious problem, they can send an army much larger than anything the southern front is built to withstand."
"How soon?"
"Within the next several years. Close to seven."
Augustin didn't answer immediately.
"How reliable is that?"
"Reliable enough that I'm acting on it."
I couldn't give him the source.
I could already imagine trying to explain that the intelligence came from another version of the princess whose agents we were screening out of his workforce.
"The exact force depends on what their command decides," I continued. "But we can't plan around them deciding to leave us alone."
"Can Varen confirm this?"
"I haven't briefed him yet."
Another silence.
Then Augustin spoke more carefully.
"I assume you want to accelerate the weapons program."
"Much further."
"Kaspar, I can hire workers and buy another warehouse. I can pay freight crews enough to make them travel in weather they would ordinarily wait out." His voice tightened. "I cannot make Rolf solve a problem twice as quickly by placing twice as many people around his desk."
"I know."
"The cannon still has problems that money cannot resolve. Release timing. Heat. Materials. If you are asking me to promise an earlier finished weapon, I cannot."
"The cannon won't be enough."
The crystal hissed.
"What?"
"We still need it." I leaned forward. "In the next few years, though, we have to be able to take elven cities."
Augustin said nothing.
"We have just spent most of a month preparing for and recovering from the capture of one ridge."
"I know."
"You know personally, I understand that. But I need you to hear what you are asking of the rest of us. A weapon that works once is not a battery. A battery is not an army. An army that can take a position still needs to be supplied there."
Augustin's voice had lost all its earlier satisfaction.
"I'm not asking you to mistake one for the other."
"Then you know that what you are describing takes years. If there is something you have not told me, this would be an excellent time."
"Before I explain," I said, "can you guarantee a person has no connection to Elara or Kasimir?"
"No."
The answer came without hesitation.
"Mind magic?"
"Unreliable. Even when a practitioner can extract a useful memory, it remains a memory. People misunderstand their employers. They are lied to. They forget. A man can honestly believe he serves no political faction while taking wages from a company owned through six intermediaries."
"What about direct questioning?"
"Fear complicates it. So does the questioner. And any mage powerful enough to examine a mind deeply comes with patrons of their own. The only option is to investigate, verify what we can, and continue watching afterward. There is no examination I can purchase that turns a stranger into a certainty."
"Then we move the research."
"To Kaltbach?"
"All of it."
Augustin drew a breath.
I continued before he could object.
"The capital keeps production that can't move yet. But the development work goes north. Rolf's group, the new recruits, the specialist benches, the research records."
"Moving the cannon laboratory will cost us time."
"So will losing it."
"We don't currently have evidence that the laboratory is compromised."
"We didn't have evidence against Eckhardt until she started killing witnesses."
That silenced him.
"The staff are being checked already," he said.
"Finish the checks before they relocate. Extend them to anyone given access to the work. Suppliers. Visiting specialists. Anyone offering to assist a researcher or introduce them to a patron."
"Every supplier cannot receive the same investigation as the principal researchers."
"Then keep suppliers out of the research buildings. Establish a receiving yard. The work goes through people we have checked."
His pen began moving.
I could hear the faint scratch between words.
"No outside tours," I said. "No Academy visitors wandering through because they taught someone's first-year glyph course. No noble patrons arriving with a letter and assuming it opens every door."
"That last one will be unpopular."
"They can complain to me."
"They will."
"Good."
I shifted in the chair. The fitting dragged against my shoulder, and I had to wait for the sharpness to fade.
"Kaspar?"
"I'm here."
"You stopped."
"I'm thinking."
The pen remained still for a moment before resuming.
"The town gates need control," I said. "Everyone entering or leaving is checked by the soldiers. Names, business, freight. Researchers and research material require separate authorization."
"We are building a manufacturing town. Its gates cannot become a two-day queue."
"Then staff them properly. I don't mean search every bag of turnips for treason. I mean no unrecorded visitors, no carts waved through because someone wears a good coat, and no one carrying a laboratory out under a canvas sheet."
"And Mara?"
"You speak to her before anything changes. Explain the threat. Work out the procedure with her."
"She will insist that the townspeople not become prisoners."
"They aren't. They can leave. We need to know who is moving through the gates, not chain people to their workbenches."
The pen moved faster.
"Use the soldiers we've already checked," I added. "Varen's uniform isn't a substitute for that."
"Understood."
He wrote without speaking.
Then he said, "You are asking me to make Kaltbach the center of something substantially more sensitive than cooling housings."
"Yes."
"What are we protecting?"
I looked at the door again.
"Documents. I need you to return to the capital."
Augustin's pen stopped.
"Now?"
"As soon as you can arrange the handover with Mara."
"Construction is at a delicate stage."
"It won't become less delicate."
"No. It won't."
"There's a packet in my bank vault. Separate from the financial records. A flat leather case."
"You're to retrieve it personally," I said. "Don't discuss the contents with the bank staff. Don't have an assistant collect it."
"What is in the packet?"
"Technical drawings. Some notes of mine."
"For what?"
"A weapon from the old civilization."
There was a small sound from the other end of the crystal.
The pen touching the table.
"An actual weapon?"
"A design for one."
"You have had this since before you left?"
"Yes."
"And Mercer hasn't seen it?"
"No one has."
"Why?"
"Because once I handed it over, I couldn't control who found out it existed."
"You trust him with the cannon."
"I trust him to build the cannon. Too many people already walk into that laboratory."
Augustin took time over his next question.
"What does it do?"
"It's a way into mana weapons that doesn't make us invent every part ourselves."
"Does it solve the cannon?"
"I don't know."
"Kaspar—"
"I'm not promising you a finished weapon in a box. Some of the materials may be impossible to get. Some of the machines don't exist anymore. They had working designs. We need to find which parts shorten the job."
The crystal light trembled across the brass housing.
"Where did you obtain these records?"
"On my last deployment."
When he spoke again, his voice was lower.
"You said specifications and your own notes. How did you decipher them?"
"When the researchers are secure, I'll teach them what they need to understand," I said. "In person. Until then, the fewer people who know where the interpretation comes from, the fewer people can repeat it."
"And you are not going to tell me over this line."
"No."
He exhaled.
"Very well."
"Give the packet to Rolf only after the relocation. Let him choose which problems require another specialist, and clear each person before they see the relevant pages. No copies sent back to the Academy for an opinion."
"That may slow the assessment."
"So will having three princes decide they own it."
"I will keep a record of access," he said. "Mercer gets the material. Additional researchers receive only what they need for their assigned work. And you will provide the missing explanations."
"As soon as I can. But there's something else."
"Go on."
"Expeditions. I want a list of every one you can find."
"What sort?"
"Old-world sites. Military ruins. Sealed facilities. Anything the Academy or a noble house is calling a dungeon."
The pen resumed.
"Within the Empire?"
"Start there. Expand into Wolkenmark and the minor kingdoms when you can. I want the destination, the sponsor, who controls access, and what they think they're going to find, or what they have found."
"Public records will not contain all of that."
"Then pay for the parts that aren't public."
"How much involvement are you planning?"
"As much as we can get. We need people inside these expeditions."
The pen stopped again.
"The largest expedition currently underway belongs to your father."
My left hand went still against the desk.
"How far have they gone?"
"The column has departed for the dungeon. The final authorizations cleared while you were in the infirmary."
"I'll think of something."
The connection ended with a soft hiss.
I sat in Mira's chair until the crystal went dark.
Mira was in the adjoining room with a clerk and a man whose boots had left muddy prints across the floor.
They both turned when I appeared in the doorway.
Mira looked from my face to the hand I had braced against the frame.
"We'll finish this after noon," she said.
The man collected his papers. The clerk followed him out.
Mira waited until they were gone.
"That conversation has made you look worse."
"I need your help."
"With a carriage back to the infirmary?"
"Later."
She folded her arms.
I glanced at the district map through the open door behind me.
"Tell me."
"House Hexenzeit's expedition. The Academy dungeon operation."
"I know of it."
"How do I get into my father's expedition?"