They are dispatching support. I do not yet know how quickly, or how much.'
The recording ended.
Alex, who had been listening alongside Raze with the bracelet's audio shared between them, went very still.
'The Order's coming,' he said. 'That complicates things.'
'How.'
'They won't listen to you. They'll barely listen to me, and I'm the one with the title.' Alex's jaw tightened. 'Order command doesn't respond well to a plan built around a game-knowledge advantage they don't believe in and a woman trapped in a wall they've never heard of. They'll want to send a conventional force and treat this like a fortified enemy position.'
'That's the wrong approach.'
'I know that. Convincing them is a different problem.' Alex looked at him. 'I can buy you time with the Order's command structure. I can't guarantee how much.'
Raze considered that, and considered, too, the shape of a decision he had been circling since the ridge conversation with Fedora three nights earlier.
