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The information I had given her because she had stopped demanding it. Choice.

I had always understood it tactically.

Choice of route. Weapon. Position. Objective.

I was beginning to understand that there were other kinds.

Outside, another transport passed, throwing moving light across the wall and briefly reflecting both of us in the dark window.

Talia at the table.

Me beside her.

Two people hiding in a civilian rental while tracing the biological records of men who officially did not exist.

I looked at the identifiers again.

For the first time since entering the Veil, I considered the possibility that the greatest threat to Ghosts did not come from enemies trying to discover us.

It came from someone who already knew exactly where to look.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Talia

By the time we found the third repeated pattern, I stopped believing in coincidence.

The first had been easy to dismiss. One deceased warrior with two different compatibility histories. One altered percentage. One accession number that didn’t match the manifest. Messy, yes. Suspicious, definitely.

But systems were built by people, and people made mistakes.

The second pattern had bothered me more.

The third changed the entire shape of the problem.

I sat at the table with the portable terminal between us, one leg tucked beneath me, while Veyr stood near the window pretending he wasn’t watching the street every thirty seconds.

He was failing.

I was beginning to think the man would check exits in his sleep.

Maybe he did.

“Come here.”

His head turned immediately. “What?”

“I need another set of eyes.”

“You have two.”

I stared at him.

He looked back at me, and then, very slowly, something almost amused passed through his expression.

“You did that on purpose.”

“No.”