The custodian made Eli explain Gravekeeper before she let him cross the examination room’s threshold.
Not the story of the talents he had inherited. Not the river. The thing he proposed to do in her room, to the remains in her custody, with two medical staff present and the handling log open.
“It supplies a name and cause of death from human remains,” he said. “It doesn’t give a history. It doesn’t locate relatives. It isn’t a conversation.”
“Will you touch the body?”
“I don’t need to.”
“Will it alter anything?”
“Not by any observed effect I know.”
She wrote his exact qualification rather than converting it into a guarantee. Tessa stood beside the door, there to support his attendance and clinical limits rather than to grant custody access on the officials’ behalf. His inherited abilities remained under the complete stop. Gravekeeper was native and distinct. The proposed observation used none of the three stored imprints.
