The guild’s reply began by agreeing with Juno.
That was what made it effective.
Two analysts appeared on the protected network beside a diagram clearer than anything the bakery’s borrowed lamp could produce. The repeated signature, they said, was a registration mark. Hunters registered for emergency protections; barriers recognized those registrations. A recurring pattern in contract material and human samples was therefore neither surprising nor evidence of extraction.
One analyst praised the expedition’s desire for clarity before describing its interpretation as premature.
Eli watched from the clinic doorway with a bucket in his hand. Beside him, a woman waiting for medicine nodded at the screen in the apothecary window.
“That makes sense,” she said.
It did make sense. That was the trouble. The explanation fit enough of what they had found to deserve a test, and none of what they feared to require a confession.
Juno came down the street halfway through the broadcast and stopped beneath the awning. She listened without interrupting. When the analysts finished, she asked the apothecary whether he could retain the bulletin wording. He could give her the posted transcript when its replacement arrived. He would not surrender his only copy sooner.
