The warded room had become a temporary commission office because Hajin no longer trusted any unmarked table inside the palace. Eirwen stood beside the desk, comparing Dominion’s second frequency against a capital-ward diagram signed by three royal recorders.
A narrow evidence case rested beneath Vella’s paired seals, with its custody strip signed across every hinge. Inside waited one vial of the dark blood taken from the child beneath the Flesh Palace.
Hajin reached toward the case just as the western window turned black around its silver frame. No glass broke, yet a red seam opened from the upper corner to the latch.
Someone stepped through that seam as though crossing a doorway cut into the evening sky. Long black hair followed a bright red dress, before a familiar tail swept clear of the closing window.
The Chain entered Hajin’s left hand before Cessy’s second foot touched the carpet. Its first link struck the floor, while the remaining length coiled around his wrist and waited.
An arrow already rested against Eirwen’s bowstring, aimed between the intruder’s heart and throat. Twelve Shards remained closed, though the room’s sharpened stillness announced how little effort opening them would require.
"You always did welcome me warmly, big brother," Cessy said, lifting both hands while her black eyes traveled across his bandaged arm.
Relief softened her mouth during one unguarded moment, before she covered it with a practiced smile.
The red seam returned before he could answer, this time opening with visible care. A dark-clothed man stepped through sideways, watching every ward line until both boots settled upon the carpet.
"You crossed a Crown-sealed window before confirming its geometry," the newcomer said, his low voice carrying the old rasp Hajin remembered.
"I confirmed what mattered," she said, without turning away from Hajin.
"You confirmed that he was alive, then forgot the room around him; those are different tasks," the man said.
Cessy’s tail struck one boot as she faced him with narrowed black eyes.
"Lucan, stop correcting me before strangers," she said.
"Observation is not acquaintance," Lucan said, studying the Chain as if Hajin had spoken his thought aloud.
The Divine Eye found no adolescent uncertainty beneath either youthful face when Hajin examined them. Both bodies contained mature demonic structures and incomplete cores connected to something immeasurably farther away.
Their material crossing bodies could bleed, suffer wounds, and transfer genuine mana. Their main bodies and full cores remained beyond Ouro, connected through routes the Eye could not follow.
Destroying either local body would not confirm true death, although damage could still travel along that connection.
Eirwen shifted her gaze once between their faces and the sealed exits around the room.
"The presentation is young, but I will address the inhabitants as adult trespassers," she said.
"Elves make introductions sound like autopsies," Cessy said, while her smile lost another trace of warmth.
"Only when guests enter through windows," Eirwen replied, keeping her arrow aimed between Cessy’s heart and Lucan’s throat.
"Your bodies bled when we fought together, and my Chain took real mana from yours," Hajin said, lifting one hungry link.
"Both were real because these bodies contain only the portions our full cores can send safely into Ouro," Lucan said.
"Then destroying them sends you below," he said, letting the loose link turn once across his knuckles.
"A broken route can damage what remains connected, and not every failed crossing returns cleanly," Cessy warned.
That answer matched the Divine Eye better than an easy promise of survival. Hajin left the Chain loose, because uncertainty could restrain them more effectively than an early threat.
"Why come now?" he asked.
"Every crossing body felt a divine incarnation die inside territory the Underworld throne considers claimed," Lucan said.
"Something pressed against every route before vanishing, and your name appeared in three reports afterward," she added.
"Dominion’s avatar died, but your throne owns neither the capital nor anyone rescued from the Flesh Palace," Hajin said.
"I described its position, rather than asking you to accept it," Lucan replied.
"The Underworld calls much of Ouro claimed, although most residents never receive notice," the woman in red said.
The bowstring moved another finger beneath Eirwen’s controlled pressure, bringing the arrowhead closer to Cessy’s eye line.
"Hidden ownership is conquest waiting for an opportunity," the elf said.
"That is why we came before the officials who enjoy collecting upon it," Cessy replied.
Lucan’s tightened jaw suggested those words had not belonged in their agreed report, a fracture Hajin noted without confusing it for loyalty.
"An avatar’s death explains the timing, but not your chosen window," Hajin said.
"We needed to learn whether you caused it, survived it, or became its replacement, because each answer changes our mission," Lucan said.
"You look too mortal to be Dominion, which I find reassuring," she said.
"You sound disappointed," he replied.
"Gods have terrible senses of humor, so I prefer you mortal," she said.
Her reply arrived lightly, although her attention had already left him for the evidence case. Cessy’s nostrils parted while her tail became rigid behind her in warning.
She moved one pace toward the desk, forcing Hajin to pull the Chain across her path. Eirwen changed targets and centered the waiting arrow over Cessy’s left eye.
"That case remains sealed," Hajin said.
"The glass is sealed, but the scent is not," Cessy replied.
Lucan inhaled once from his position near the window, then settled into the posture of someone recognizing an old danger.
"Where did you obtain that blood?" she asked.
Hajin allowed silence to stretch across the Chain before answering her question with his own.
"Tell me what it is first," he said.
"It came from a living demonic child whose blood has not chosen its adult court pattern," Cessy said.
"Vella reached the first conclusion, but could not identify the lineage or the second structure threaded through it," the elf said.
"Vella knows bodies, not the rules written beneath Underworld blood," she replied, leaning nearer without crossing the Chain.
"You know those rules?" Hajin asked.
"I know this vial should not be sitting inside a palace bedroom," she said.
"This is a commission evidence room under royal custody, and the bed does not weaken its seals," Eirwen said.
"The seals are not what concerns her," Lucan said.
Cessy’s black eyes remained fixed upon the vial, and neither her smile nor her mocking voice returned.
"Is the child here?" she asked.
Hajin let the question hang between the waiting arrow and his loose Chain.
"She is protected, and I will not give either of you her location," he said.
Concern crossed Cessy’s face before discipline caught it, followed by calculation and another brief trace of relief. The child surviving appeared to matter beyond whatever mission had brought her through the window.
Lucan stepped beside her and spoke softly, although Hajin could hear every word across the quiet room.
"You removed his likely death from the last report, then crossed first and checked his breathing before the wards," he said.
"This is not the place," Cessy replied, turning her head toward him without moving anything else.
"Attachment is changing your reports and the risks you reveal before we agree upon them," Lucan said.
The accusation erased her practiced smile, leaving two agents measuring a fracture neither could safely name before witnesses.
"Coming first may keep the child alive, even if Cessy revealed too much," Lucan said, directing his attention toward Hajin.
"Then explain the blood," Hajin said.
Cessy looked from the sealed vial toward his waiting Chain, while her teasing voice disappeared beneath the Underworld agent’s composure.
"Tell me whether anyone below the palace called her property, because that decides how soon the Underworld comes to collect," she said.