The Ministry was empty when Leximus left that night.
He had waited until the last clerk had gone home, until the gas lamps had been turned down, until the only light came from the hissing flames and the pale glow of the street beyond the high windows. The basement was cold—not his cold, but the cold of abandonment, of spaces that had been sealed too long.
He sat at his cubicle, the file on Project Gilded Ashes still open before him. The numbers blurred. He couldn't focus. The image of Hespera's body kept intruding—the way her veins had glowed, the way her mouth had opened in that silent scream.
He closed the file.
There was something he needed to investigate. Something that had been bothering him since the trial.
Justicar Joel Williams.
Williams was wrong.
Leximus had noticed it the first time he saw the man in the tribunal chamber—the way he moved, the way he spoke, the way the air seemed to still around him. There was no elemental signature. No flicker of Fire, no whisper of Air, no weight of Earth, no flow of Water. Just... nothing. A void where a soul should be.
But it wasn't the Void. Leximus knew the Void. He carried it inside him, cold and patient. Williams's emptiness was different. It was not the absence of potential. It was the absence of something else. Something Leximus couldn't name.
He had tried to find records on Williams during his first weeks at the Ministry. There were none in the public files. But the classified cabinets—the ones marked Audit Eyes Only—might hold something different.
The gas lamps had been turned down, their flames low, casting long shadows across the floor. Leximus walked to the filing cabinets at the far end of the row—the ones marked Classified. Audit Eyes Only. He had broken into them before, to find the files on Project Gilded Ashes. Now he needed something else.
He pulled the drawer labeled Personnel. Judicial Branch.
Inside: files on every judge in the capital. Thick folders for most, filled with decades of records. Thin folders for a few, the newer appointees. And one folder so thin it was almost empty.
Williams, Joel. Justicar, First Class.
Leximus pulled the folder and carried it back to his cubicle.
The folder contained three pages.
The first was a letter of appointment, dated ten years ago, signed by King George IV himself. The language was formal, flowery—full of praise for Williams's "unwavering dedication to justice" and "exceptional qualifications." It did not mention where those qualifications had been obtained.
The second was a memorandum from the Audit Office, confirming Williams's security clearance. The clearance level was higher than any Leximus had seen— higher than anyone in the Ministry files. It was the kind of clearance that meant Williams answered only to the King.
The third was a single sheet of paper, blank except for a handwritten note at the bottom:
"No further records on file. By order of the Crown."
Leximus stared at the note.
No further records. Ten years as Justicar, and the Crown had kept no files on him. No performance reviews. No background checks. No personal information. It was as if Joel Williams had appeared from nowhere, fully formed, and the King had simply... accepted him.
The cold inside him stirred.
He read the pages again. And again.
The letter of appointment was dated ten years ago, but there was no mention of what Williams had done before that. No previous employment. No education. No birth date. No place of origin. The man had no history—at least, none that the Crown was willing to record.
By order of the Crown.
The King himself had ordered the files kept empty. The King himself had decided that Joel Williams would have no past.
Leximus sat back in his chair. The gas lamp hissed. The shadows on the walls seemed to reach for him.
He didn't know what Williams was. He didn't know where the man had come from, or why the King had appointed him, or what made his clearance so high. But he knew something was wrong. Something was hidden. And hidden things, in Leximus's experience, were always dangerous.
He copied the three pages into his notebook, working by the dim light of the gas lamp. His handwriting was small, precise, the letters pressing into the paper. When he finished, he returned the folder to the drawer, locked the cabinet, and sat in the darkness.
The cold inside him was quiet now— but it was the quiet of waiting.
He had learned something today. He didn't know what it meant yet. But he would find out.
He left the Ministry at midnight.
The streets were empty, the fog thick. The gaslights flickered as he passed, their flames struggling against the dark. The cold inside him was a second heartbeat, steady and patient.
He thought of Williams's empty file. The King's order. The absence of history.
He thought of Hespera's body, slumped in the copper chair, her veins still glowing faintly in the moments before death.
He thought of Sheila. Of the banquet. Of the extraction he was planning.
The cold inside him stirred.
He walked faster