Akeel remained outside the apartment door, his aura suppressed so completely that the three people inside had no reason to suspect he was standing only a few steps away.Bram’s warning remained in his mind. Theron had ordered him to take Akeel and disappear if anyone from the Corvain family ever came looking for a second child.That changed the question Akeel needed answered. He already knew why Bram had accepted him in Havenrock. What mattered now was who Theron had feared enough to hide Selene’s second child from his own family.Inside the apartment, Hester was not ready to let the subject end.“Why was Theron so afraid of the Corvains if he was one of them?” Hester asked.“He never gave me names,” Bram replied. “He only told me that someone inside that family had enough influence to change family records, medical records, bloodline registrations, even information about Selene’s children.”Akeel listened without moving.Everything Bram described had already happened. Selene’s birth

Akeel kept his Crystal Link angled away from Aldric and Elias.“Keep Joren out of every report you send to the Corvains,” Akeel wrote to Cyrus.Cyrus replied almost immediately, confirming that anything connected to Joren would remain between the two of them.Akeel closed the message.Until he knew who Theron had feared inside the Corvain family, Akeel would decide how much information that family received. Joren had already become part of the same hidden protection system that surrounded Selene’s two sons, which made exposing his name too dangerous.The protected crystal on the table suddenly flickered.Elias noticed first and raised one hand before Aldric could move closer.“Don’t touch it,” Elias warned.The light inside the old record pulsed unevenly, then began to dim.Akeel quietly activated Supersense.Past the low hum of the medical equipment, he heard a faint repeating vibration inside the crystal housing. The sound was too small for ordinary hearing, but Supersense allowed h

Akeel remained in the old Corvain medical section after ending his private exchange with Cyrus.The newest evidence had changed several parts of the investigation, but it had not answered the most dangerous question. Theron might have survived his disappearance. Someone close to him might have learned how to reproduce his private medical authority. There was also the possibility that Theron had prepared a hidden network capable of continuing his orders after he vanished.Akeel refused to choose among those explanations without proof.“Keep all three possibilities open,” Akeel told Cyrus through the Crystal Link. “I want evidence before we decide who was really giving those orders.”“I’ll trace every surviving use of Theron’s authority separately,” Cyrus replied.Akeel ended the connection and turned back toward Aldric and Elias. He still had not told either of them that Joren had been transferred with his confirmed biological twin. Until the person Theron feared inside the Corvain fam

Akeel did not move after Cyrus gave him the name attached to the new Astral Crown transfer.Theron Corvain.Not an old record. Not an authorization created twenty years ago and discovered now.Astral Crown had accepted Theron’s protected authority in the present.Akeel kept the Crystal Link close to his side so Aldric and Elias could not see the private connection.“Keep monitoring the external confirmation,” Akeel told Cyrus. “Do not contact Vaelor Draven, the protected guest, Joren, or anyone involved in the transfer. If the departure status changes, tell me immediately.”“I’ll watch it,” Cyrus replied. “Nothing else.”Akeel ended the connection.He wanted to leave for Astral Crown immediately, but Selene was lying only a few steps away, and someone had recently renewed part of the old suppression structure inside her damaged channels.He refused to abandon one problem simply because another had become urgent.Both mysteries pointed toward systems that had once been connected to The

Akeel closed Cyrus’s message before anyone could see it. The elderly witness was still standing in front of him, and Akeel had no intention of letting another question go unanswered while someone who had personally helped Theron remained within reach.“You said Theron hid us from different enemies,” Akeel said. “Explain what you meant.”The older man glanced toward Aldric and Elias before returning his attention to Akeel.“I helped arrange protection for one of Selene’s sons many years ago,” the witness replied. “It was your brother, not you. Theron told me that keeping the two of you together would make it easier for someone to find you both.”Akeel studied him carefully. He had spent years believing he was Bram and Hester’s biological son, only to discover that Selene was his real mother and that he had an identical twin. Now someone who had been involved in the protection arrangement was standing before him.“Who was Theron hiding us from?” Akeel asked.“One danger came from people