The boy waited three hours.
He did not pace.
He did not sit.
He stood beneath the eastern spillway, where the city's runoff thinned into mist and the sound of water made surveillance unreliable. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, posture careful, like someone afraid of being mistaken for a threat.
Kael noticed him immediately.
Not because the boy was loud.
Because he was deliberate.
Kael slowed, then stopped a short distance away.
"You've been standing there a long time," Kael said.
The boy flinched but didn't run.
"I didn't know if you'd stop," he said. His voice was steady, but thin. "They said you might."
"They?" Kael asked.
The boy hesitated. "People who talk quietly."
That was enough.
Kael glanced around. The spillway was empty in the way only semi-public places were technically open, practically abandoned.
"What do you want?" Kael asked.
The boy swallowed. "I need something removed."
The words landed heavier than any threat.
Kael did not answer immediately.
"From you?" he asked.
"No," the boy said quickly. "From my sister."
That was worse.
Kael exhaled slowly. "You shouldn't be here."
"I know," the boy replied. "But they said you don't send people away."
"They were wrong," Kael said.
The boy's hands tightened.
"She's Pathbound," he said. "Dominion. Ascendant state."
Too high.
Too young.
"She doesn't sleep anymore," he continued. "She doesn't eat unless told. She gives orders even when she's alone."
Kael felt the shape of it immediately the narrowing, the compression of self.
"Why haven't you petitioned?" Kael asked.
"We did," the boy said. "They said she was functioning optimally."
Of course they did.
"She wasn't like this before," he said, voice breaking despite his effort. "She used to argue with me."
Silence stretched between them.
Kael understood the danger now.
This was not an anomaly.
This was a request.
"If I help you," Kael said carefully, "she may lose her position."
"I don't care," the boy said.
"She may lose her Path," Kael continued.
"I don't care."
"She may not be the same person afterward."
The boy's eyes filled, but he didn't look away.
"She's already not."
That was the moment.
Not when Kael felt Null stir.
When he felt choice constrict.
"You don't get to ask this," Kael said quietly. "You don't know what it costs."
"I know what it costs now," the boy said. "It costs her."
Kael looked past him, toward the spillway's edge.
This was exactly what the woman had warned him about.
People would come.
Not with weapons.
With reasons.
"I won't touch her," Kael said.
The boy's face collapsed.
"But," Kael continued, "I'll look."
Hope snapped back too quickly dangerously.
"That's all I'm asking," the boy whispered.
Kael nodded once.
"Then go home," he said. "And don't come back here."
The boy bowed too deeply, too formally and ran.
Kael remained.
For the first time since awakening, Null did not feel clean.
It felt heavy.
Not with excess.
With expectation.
Above the city, the Concordance registered nothing unusual.
No escalation. No ritual spike. No directive failure.
That was the problem.
Because somewhere in Eland, a Dominion Ascendant slept without dreams, and a brother believed absence might save her.
And Kael had just agreed to look.
---
End of Chapter Twenty