The medical notes expanded beneath the images.

Private Ravenwood Physician Report

Patient: Liam Sienna Canmore

Age: 23

Secondary classification: Dominant Omega

Exam location: Ravenwood manor, private treatment room

Exam time: 18:42

Reporting physician: Dr. Alin Voss, Ravenwood household physician

Presenting complaint: facial trauma, right side; headache; jaw stiffness; localized swelling; intraoral bleeding. Patient denies dizziness at time of examination. Patient denies visual disturbance. Patient refused sedative. Patient refused full neurological rest period.

Observed injuries:

Contusion in the right zygomatic region extending to the mandibular angle. Approximate visible spread: 8.4 cm x 5.1 cm before treatment. Coloration: deep purple-red with early blackening at the central impact site. Swelling: moderate to severe.

Abrasion/split, upper cheek: 0.6 cm superficial skin break. Cleaned and sealed with low-grade etheric dermal knit.

Intraoral laceration, right inner cheek: 1.8 cm. No infection risk detected at time of exam. Treated with antiseptic rinse and soft-tissue restorative cream.

Jaw response: guarded movement. Pain reported on lateral opening. No dislocation. No fracture indicated by ether-imaging scan.

Orbital response: mild lower-lid discoloration beginning. No orbital fracture. Pupillary response normal.

Cranial assessment: no loss of consciousness reported. Patient declined extended observation. Physician notes the patient is an unreliable reporter regarding pain intensity.

Recommended treatment:

Cold compression for six hours.

An anti-inflammatory ether cream was applied.

Dermal repair cream applied to visible bruising.

Cosmetic masking layer applied at patient’s request before departure.

Soft foods recommended for twenty-four hours.

No displacement transfer recommended for forty-eight hours.

No extended ether channel strain is recommended for twenty-four hours.

Follow-up required within twelve hours.

Arik read the final line twice.

No displacement transfer recommended for forty-eight hours.

Liam had used the displacement anchor anyway.

Arik let out a sigh and let his head fall back against the chair with a soft thud, black hair spilling against the headrest pillow.

"This is pissing me off."

Mezos looked at him.

For a moment, he seemed to weigh whether the sentence was a confession, a warning, or the last stable bridge before murder became policy.

Then he said, "The displacement?"

"Everything."

Arik kept his head tipped back, eyes half-lidded as he stared at the ceiling of the Wrohan suite with the expression of a man being forced, against his will, to experience moral restraint in real time.

"He was struck hard enough to require cosmetic masking," Arik said. "Told not to use displacement for forty-eight hours. Then, within what? Less than a day? He used an unstable anchor to beat an elevator because he did not trust four grown men not to touch his machine."

Mezos’s mouth twitched faintly. "To be fair, Noah was present."

"That does not improve my mood."

Mezos waited, because there were only two options now.

Either Arik remained calm, cold, and reserved, the version of himself Gabriel had managed to raise into something resembling civilization.

Or he went fully, beautifully mad and burned Wrohan to the ground, as he had wanted to do the first time Goliath’s memories clawed their way back through his soul.

For several seconds, Arik did neither.

He sat with his head against the chair, black hair spread over the headrest, the slate resting loose in one hand. His expression was almost serene, which was, in Mezos’s professional opinion, never comforting.

Then Arik lifted his head.

"Mira," he said.

The suite’s desk recognized the command and opened a secure channel at once.

Mezos closed his eyes briefly.

’So. Not fire. Paperwork.’

Somehow, that was worse.

The line connected after one chime.

"Your Highness," Mira said, crisp as ever.

"Schedule a private meeting with George of Wrohan."

There was a short pause.

Mira was too competent for long pauses, but even she needed half a breath when her prince casually requested an audience with a man most of Agaron had placed somewhere between political liability and moral waste.

"King George, sir?"

"Yes."

"Tonight?"

"If possible."

"And if not?"

"Make it possible tomorrow morning before the formal trade session."

Mira’s voice sharpened. "Should I give a subject?"

"Dominant omegas of Wrohan."

—

Liam Sienna Canmore was under house arrest.

Not officially, because official language required paperwork, and Enia Ravenwood had never needed paperwork to make a door feel locked.

There were no guards posted outside his room. No dramatic declaration. No formal revocation of movement privileges. No noble household nonsense involving sealed letters and family authority.

There was only his mother standing in the entrance hall when he returned to Ravenwood Manor a full day after sneaking out like a teenager with more confidence than sense, her wine-red dress immaculate, her dark hair pinned with murderous elegance, and her expression calm enough to make Liam consider fleeing back into the taxi.

Behind her, Aunt Mirelle had stood with one hand on the banister and the soft, civilized smile of a woman who had already planned the funeral for his independence.

Liam had said, "I can explain."

Enia had said, "No."

That had been the end of the negotiation.

Now, several hours later, Liam sat in the eastern reading room with an old book on ether-grid distribution open across his knees, a cup of strong tea on the side table, a cold compress beside it, and the oppressive awareness that if he stepped too close to any exit, someone in the manor would materialize with soup, questions, or both.

The book was excellent.

That was the only tolerable part of the situation.

It was an old municipal engineering volume from before Wrohan had decided civilians could survive on excuses and uneven pressure cycles. The diagrams were hand-drawn, the margins full of archaic notation, the theory charmingly outdated and occasionally brilliant in a way that made Liam want to dig the author out of history and ask why all of his successors had been incompetent.

He turned a page carefully.

His jaw ached.

Of course it did.

Dr. Voss had advised him to avoid excessive talking, hard food, displacement transfer, channel strain, stress, laboratories, and "whatever expression you are currently making, Lord Canmore, because it implies you are about to ignore me."

Liam had ignored most of that.

Now his face hurt, his head throbbed faintly at the temples, and his mother had confiscated two of his private access cards with the grim efficiency of a woman collecting weapons from a criminal relative.

The worst part was that she had been right.

Which was intolerable.

Aunt Mirelle had made him eat soup in silence and then said, very gently, "You may be brilliant, darling, but you are also twenty-three and occasionally an idiot."

Liam had tried to argue.

His jaw had reminded him that silence had merit.

He turned another page.

A diagram of district pressure balancing unfolded across the paper, showing three independent civic conduits that had once been designed not to intersect with estate lines. Sensible. Elegant. Politically doomed. Nobles did not enjoy infrastructure they could not steal from.

Liam’s ears warmed.

He froze.

Then he narrowed his eyes at the book.

"Oh, no."

The warmth intensified, creeping along the tips of his ears with the irritating persistence of family superstition.

Someone was talking about him. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Or thinking about him.

Possibly both.