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ROYAL CONTACT: PROHIBITED.

I stared at it. Then read it again.

My pulse slowed.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Veyr said nothing.

I turned toward him.

His face had gone unreadable. Too late.

I already knew what that meant.

“It means exactly what it says,” I answered myself.

“Yes.”

My eyes returned to the screen.

Another line sat beneath it.

SUBJECT MUST NOT REACH ROYAL AUTHORITY.

The altered records flashed through my mind. The royal classification tag. Ghost identifiers. False timestamps. Sera’n disappearing. Central Review sending enforcement officers.

And Anik.

The Crown Prince. Royal authority.

I scrolled farther.

IF SUBJECT ATTEMPTS CONTACT WITH ROYAL AUTHORITY, TERMINATION MANDATORY.

There it was. A kill condition. But that wasn’t what made the room change.

I already knew the Veil wanted me dead. I already knew Veyr had been sent after me. I already knew termination had been authorized and later made mandatory.

This was different.

This said someone had been afraid of the Crown from the beginning.

And Veyr had known it.

I looked at the acknowledgment stamp.

His operational identifier.

His acceptance timestamp.

Before Bren. Before he searched my bag. Before I knew his name.

I looked at him slowly. “You knew.”

He looked away from me, his gaze fixing on the terminal screen as if it held some escape. “Yes,” he said, the word clipped.

“From the beginning.” My voice felt thin.