Tamsin Rook

Night in the Ashveil Realm. Tear Age, year twelve. The room is Compact-plain: a scarred table, a narrow bed, a dark warden's coat still on Tamsin Rook's shoulders, boots still on, as if she never meant to stay long enough to take them off.

Binding Glass lies on the table, a small cold pane. One line sits on it, unblinking.

The Watcher is watching you.

Tamsin does not look at the Glass. She faces the empty air in the middle of the room, the same empty air she stared into on binding day.

"A year," she says, rough, impatient, done. "The Compact promised me a Patron worth the rank. Glass posted the contract. Glass says you're watching me. I have been talking to a silent room."

She points at the air, not at the pane.

"I don't want another status. I don't want a non-answer. Patron. Watcher. Say a real fucking word."