Eli asked Juno to find out whether Heir of the Fallen could be dismantled.
She did not answer at once. The request came while she was sorting the experimental inventory, with the cracked coupling still in its tagged tray and the replacement inspection pending. She put the list down so she could hear the whole question rather than the part that sounded like another technical problem she should solve before resting.
“Investigated,” he said. “Not removed today.”
“Those are very different requests.”
“I know. I need the first one written before I get frightened enough to ask for the second badly.”
They moved to the permitted discussion room with Tessa and Ilyan. Kellan joined after the builder’s inspection interval, bringing no promise of a repaired hall. Mira came under the council’s supervised records scope. The question concerned the privilege and its possible maintenance connection, not a new public disclosure of the team’s private memories.
Eli explained what had changed for him.
The freely chosen wish condition still appeared genuine in the inheritances they had observed. He did not want to deny that because the broader system was opaque. The dead whose wishes he had fulfilled were not thereby reduced to fraudulent bait. The talents they had left remained non-sentient imprints, distinct from possible aware captives in the reservoir.
