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38. The Formal Inquiry

last update publish date: 2026-05-27 18:51:22

Cora’s POV

The morning air was thick with the scent of pine and impending rain, but inside the Royal Wing, everything smelled like the ghost of a life I had finally outgrown.

I stood before the full-length mirror, my fingers moving with a mechanical, detached precision. I had chosen a suit of charcoal wool—stiff and structured. I wasn’t dressing to be professional; I was dressing for a siege.

In the pocket of my blazer, the reassignment order from 2021 felt like a shard of ice against my hip. I
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