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“You forgot weapons,” he said, nodding toward the ledger with enough gravity to suggest the omission might prove fatal.

“I haven't reached weapons yet.” Kesta continued writing without looking up. “Medical privacy comes first.”

“That will not help when someone attacks you.”

“It will help when you come in here with another interesting injury and I tell the entire camp how you acquired it.”

The dried fruit slowly disappeared behind his back.

Across the room, Sera continued grinding medicine with a stone pestle, although the twitch near the corner of her mouth ruined her attempt at indifference. “Put weapons second.”

Kesta smiled and added SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING AND ACCESS TO A LEGAL CAMP WEAPON beneath the medical clause.

The document was considerably shorter than anything she would have written during her first night in Ash Camp. Her room already locked only from the inside. Dreven had never entered without invitation. Her work in the infirmary was voluntary, her ration had become independent, and the council record explicitly denied him sexual, reproductive, labor, or domestic rights under the emergency claim. Those things still belonged in writing.

Not because Kesta believed Dreven was waiting for an opportunity to violate them, but because laws survived people. Promises did not always. She had just begun drafting a clause about travel beyond the inner gate when Keth entered carrying the handheld scanner Tavi had used on her band. The mechanical half of his face clicked softly as he crossed the infirmary, and the expression in his organic eye told Kesta he had found something he did not particularly want to explain.

She set down the stylus. “That expression does not inspire confidence.”

“It should not.”

Tavi abandoned the dried fruit immediately and came closer. Keth placed the scanner beside Kesta's wrist and activated it. The copper markings around the black band brightened in response, thin lines of light moving beneath its surface.

“The band is not Kharovian,” he said.

“I know. The empire put it on me before descent.”

“Yes, but when Dreven declared the surface claim, the band accepted his declaration and translated it into an older protection protocol. That is why the symbols changed.”

Kesta turned her wrist beneath the light. “Yesterday Tavi found an activation spike when Dreven and I were close. What else does it do?”

Keth's mouth tightened before he answered. “It monitors pulse, blood loss and loss of consciousness. It also recognizes proximity to the registered claim holder.”

Kesta felt the muscles across her shoulders tighten. “Anything else?”

“Approximate location if you cross a compatible relay.”

For several seconds she simply stared at him.

“Location.”

“Yes.”

“Can Dreven track me?”

“No.” Keth answered quickly enough that she believed him. “Ash Camp has nothing capable of reading the signal as a location map. Dreven did not know this device carried the function. Neither did I until Tavi recovered enough of the old protocol to compare it with the imperial layer.”

Tavi raised two hands expectantly. “I believe this deserves formal recognition.”

Sera pointed the pestle toward the contraband fruit.

“You may have recognition when that is back in the food hall.”

His hands dropped. Kesta looked at the band again. Her anger came cold rather than hot this time because there was nothing ambiguous about its target. The empire had fastened the device around her wrist before dropping her onto a world its official records claimed had no functioning settlements. Yet somehow that same device knew enough about Kharovian surface law to recognize Dreven's claim.

“They knew,” she murmured.

Keth's expression became grim. “Knew what?”