Pell had brought a photograph after all.
It lay face down on the table between him and Tessa. Eli could see the back of the print, a date written in blue ink and a small number in one corner. Pell kept his hand beside it while he reviewed the interview terms.
They were meeting in a private room at the registry. Tessa had chosen it because the building was public, because the room had a door she could open herself, and because Marisol could reach her by phone if the clinic needed her. The window overlooked the street, where applicants moved through the afternoon queue. Eli sat beside her with the folder containing a copy of Pell’s original form and the revised terms.
“I’ll take notes,” Pell said. “You may end the interview at any time. Mr. Voss is present as your support person and should not answer for you.”
“Will you record audio?” Tessa asked.
“No.”
“Will you confirm that in writing?”
Pell made a note and turned the page so she could see it. Tessa photographed the sentence. She had also written down the start time, the names of everyone present, and the purpose of the meeting as Pell had described it.
Eli watched the photograph. He wanted to turn it over. The urge embarrassed him. The image showed Darius’s body, and Tessa had come to learn what had been found. His own questions did not give him a claim on it.
Pell began with the building. “When did you last speak with your father before the incident?”
“Earlier that morning. He called to ask whether I’d eaten breakfast.”
“Did he mention feeling unwell?”
“No.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“He was going to work. He said he might stop by the place where I was volunteering afterward.”
“Was he taking any medication?”
Tessa glanced at her notes. “I’m willing to tell you what I know about his health if you explain how it relates to the mark.”
“Some medications can affect the skin.”
“That is a reason. He took medication for blood pressure. I can give you the name if I find the box, but I won’t guess the dose.”
Pell wrote. “Did you see him during the rescue?”
“No. Eli found me upstairs and told me my father was hurt on the lower landing. A responder was with him. Later I learned that he had died.”
“Did you see the wound?”
Tessa’s fingers tightened on her pen. “No. I can tell you what Eli and the responders told me, but I did not examine him.”
Pell looked up. “Who was with you?”
“Eli and several residents. There were responders outside later.”
“Names?”
“I can give you the names of people who have agreed to be contacted. I won’t give you patient information from the clinic.”
“I’m not asking for clinic information.”
“Some of the residents became patients. I’ll ask them first.”
Pell wrote again. Eli could not see whether he recorded the limitation or only the names he expected to obtain. Tessa noticed his glance and shifted her chair slightly so she could see the page. Pell did not hide it, though his handwriting was difficult to read upside down.
“Did anyone handle your father’s body before the responders?” he asked.
Tessa’s pen stopped. “Eli was with him.”
Pell turned toward Eli. “Did you move him?”
“I helped bandage him and move him onto a carry sheet. A responder was with him and checked his pulse before I went upstairs to find Tessa. I did not see the moment he died.”
“Did you touch his forearm?”
“I don’t remember touching it.”
“Did you see a mark?”
“No.”
Pell placed two fingers on the photograph and turned it over.
The image showed a forearm against a white background. A dark pattern lay near the wrist: several narrow lines joined at irregular angles, like cracks radiating from a point hidden beneath the skin. There was a measuring strip beside it. The photograph did not show Darius’s face, but Tessa went still when she saw it.
Eli had never seen the mark before. The arrangement of lines reminded him of the strain he saw in stone, but resemblance was not evidence. He leaned forward before he could stop himself.
“When was that taken?” he asked.
Pell’s gaze snapped to him. “Why?”
“Because if it appeared after he died, that would be different from an injury he had beforehand.”
“You answered quickly.”
“It’s an obvious question,” Eli said.
Tessa did not take her eyes off the photograph. “I asked for the date too.”
Pell turned the print so she could see the writing on the back. “The examination team photographed it after the body was received. We have no verified image from before the incident.”
“Can you show me the whole arm?”
“This is the image I was authorized to bring.”
“Was it photographed before the body was moved?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it present when the responders arrived?”
“I don’t know.”
Tessa wrote both answers down. “Did the examination team describe it as an injury?”
“They described what they observed. The cause is under review.”
Eli kept his hands in his lap. The photograph could show bruising, a pattern caused by pressure, or something related to the system. He had no basis for choosing among those possibilities. Yet he had reacted as if he expected an answer to a question he had not shared with Tessa.
Pell slid the photograph back into his folder. “Mr. Voss, your registry assessment lists Gravekeeper.”
Eli looked at Tessa. She had agreed to an interview about her father, not an examination of Eli’s abilities.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did you display any other ability during the building incident?”
“I warned the responders about a damaged wall.”
“Your assessment does not list structural analysis.”
“I noticed damage.”
“Several witnesses described you identifying a specific failure point.”
Tessa placed her pen on the table. “How does that relate to my father’s mark?”
“We are establishing who was present and what occurred.”
“You asked him about his assessment.”
“The information may be relevant.”
“Then explain the connection.”
Pell folded his hands. “If an unusual ability manifested at the same time as the mark, that could help our specialists narrow the investigation.”
“Did an unusual ability manifest on my father?” Tessa asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Did the mark appear before or after he died?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then you are asking Eli to disclose his ability because it might be connected to something you can’t yet describe.”
“I am asking for information that may help your family receive an answer.”
Tessa’s expression hardened. “Will withholding it delay the examination?”
“It could delay our understanding.”
“Will it delay the release of his body?”
“No.”
“Will it affect any decision the medical examiner makes?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then don’t suggest my family cannot get answers unless he cooperates with your separate questions.”
Pell looked at his notes. “I didn’t say cannot.”
“You said it could delay our understanding. I want the distinction recorded.”
He wrote another line. Tessa asked to see it. The note said she had declined to provide further information. She asked him to add that the family had not been told how Eli’s assessment related to the mark. Pell added the sentence without looking at her.
Eli wanted to challenge him further. He wanted to ask whether Meridian had seen similar marks and whether any had appeared after a system reward. But that would confirm the connection Pell was probing. It would also turn Tessa’s interview into the investigation she had asked him not to conduct.
Tessa closed her notebook. “I’d like a copy of that photograph.”
“I’ll need authorization.”
“Please request it. I’d also like the name of the office holding the original and a way to contact them directly.”
“I can provide the office’s general number.”
He wrote it on a card. Tessa checked the number against the one on the revised terms. It matched.
“Is there anything else you want to ask about my father’s movements?” she said.
Pell looked at Eli. “Not if Mr. Voss is unwilling to discuss what he saw.”
“He has told you what he remembers about handling my father’s body. You’ve made a separate request about his assessment.”
Pell closed his notebook. “My office may contact you again.”
“You may send a written request. I haven’t agreed to an ongoing authorization.”
He gathered the photograph and the sympathy card he had brought as a second copy of the guild’s condolences. Tessa left the card on the table. She picked up her folder, checked that the copy of the original form was still inside, and stood.
“I don’t have more to add today,” she said. “The interview is over.”
Eli followed her out without asking another question. They passed the registry counter and the line of applicants. Outside, the street noise swallowed the quiet of the room. Tessa walked half a block before stopping beneath the awning of a closed shop.
“You knew something about the mark,” she said.
“I hadn’t seen it before.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It looked like a pattern I recognized. That’s all.”
“From where?”
He pictured the lines Weak-Point Sight had shown him in the clinic wall and the dungeon support. The photograph’s dark marks had resembled them, but the ability had shown him stress in physical objects, not a pattern on Darius’s skin. He had no evidence that the two were related.
“From the way my ability shows damage,” he said. “It might be coincidence.”
Tessa watched him. “You answered before I could ask why it mattered to you. Pell saw that too.”
“I didn’t tell him anything specific.”
“You told him it mattered.”
“He already thought it mattered. That’s why he asked.”
“He thought it might matter. Now he knows you reacted.” She held the folder against her chest. “I needed to know that possibility before we went in.”
“I didn’t know there would be a photograph.”
“You knew there was a mark. You knew your ability came after my father died. You could have told me you were looking for a connection.”
“I didn’t want to make you think there was one when I don’t know.”
“You could have said you didn’t know.”
Eli opened his mouth, then closed it. She was right. He had tried to protect her from an uncertain possibility by withholding the possibility itself. In the room, she had been forced to infer his reaction while Pell watched them both.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you what I was wondering.”
“There’s more than that.”
He looked toward the intersection. A bus pulled up, and people stepped down onto the pavement. People waited outside the registry all day, and the bus deposited another crowd near its entrance.
Tessa followed his glance. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid of a particular guild?”
“I’ve worked for guilds. I know what they can do with information.”
“Which ones?”
The question landed in the same place as the map. He could name the guild from his first life, but that would lead to questions about years of work he had not done in this timeline. He could give her a general account and hope she accepted it. She had already shown him the cost of another partial answer.
“I need time,” he said.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Tessa looked down at the folder. “I’m going back to the clinic. I have work to finish there before we close. If Pell contacts me again, I’ll handle it, but I need to know whether there’s a risk to the clinic that you’ve kept from me.”
“I don’t know of a specific threat to the clinic.”
“Is there a threat to you?”
“I don’t know.”
She gave him a tired look. “Those answers may both be true. They don’t tell me enough to decide what precautions to take.”
Inside the registry, Pell finished a call to his office. He described the interview, the unsigned authorization, and Eli’s response to the photograph. He did not claim that the response proved an ability transfer. He asked for someone to observe Voss’s movements until the office could decide whether further inquiry was justified.
His supervisor approved the request. Pell wrote the observer’s name in his notebook, then added a reminder to ask the examination team when the photograph had been taken.
They walked to the next crossing together. At the signal she took the route toward the sewing shop. Eli turned toward the registry, where he intended to ask whether any public report described markings on the dead after gate incidents.
A man with an umbrella, sent after Pell obtained approval, waited until Tessa had crossed, then followed Eli along the opposite side of the street. He kept his distance when Eli stopped at a window, and continued past when Eli turned around. Eli saw him but did not recognize him. He assumed the man was another applicant avoiding the crowd at the entrance.
At the clinic, Tessa put the folder in the envelope Leah had labeled. She placed it beside the supplier’s invoice, where she could find it again. Then she washed her hands and called the next patient into the room.