POV: Evelyn

They had put a paper gown on my chair.

Pink. Folded. Tied with a white ribbon, as though being stripped in a room full of strangers ought to feel like receiving a present.

I picked it up and handed it to the council attendant.

“You have the wrong appointment.”

Behind me, Silas stopped walking.

The attendant looked toward a side door. “The assessment suite is prepared.”

“I'm here for a hearing.”

My lawyer, Miriam, set her briefcase on the table. “And the overnight stay remains in effect until that hearing concludes. Put the gown away.”

The woman obeyed, her cheeks flushing. I watched her go without blaming her for whoever had given the instruction.

My hands were steady this morning. Silas had burned one corner of the toast, Sophie had generously declared the other three edible, and I had eaten breakfast in my own clothes with people who wanted me there.

I held on to that as Sabine entered.

She wore gray wool and carried no visible papers. Harrow followed with a sealed equipment case. The restraint might have been inside it. I refused to spend the next hour imagining that.

Silas pulled out the chair beside mine.

“Observers sit behind the rail,” Sabine said.

“He is my support person,” I answered.

“He is also the source of a binding influence.”

Miriam looked at the three council reviewers taking their seats. “My client requested him. Is there an objection from the panel?”

The chairwoman, a narrow-faced elder wearing reading glasses on a chain, shook her head. “He may remain. Ms. Reed will answer for herself.”

Silas sat.

Under the table, his knee touched mine. Nothing more. Through the bond, I felt the effort that small stillness required.

Sabine began with my safety.

She spoke warmly about unknown bloodlines, possible medical complications, and the council's responsibility to provide specialist care. If I hadn't seen Harrow's hand reaching for my throat, I might have mistaken her for someone offering help.

“A short residential evaluation,” she concluded. “With release once the clinical team is satisfied.”

“How short?” I asked.

“It depends on the findings.”

“Who decides I can leave?”

“The supervising physician.”

“Name?”

She glanced at Harrow. He opened his tablet.

Miriam put the transfer notice between us. “We requested the receiving provider last night. The response arrived at eight forty-six.”

Fourteen minutes before the hearing.

The name on the page was Ash Grove Assessment Services.

I read the address twice.

Not because it sounded sinister. Because of the warehouse number beneath it.

Unit 4B.

My stomach tightened.

“May I access the accounting records I brought?” I asked the chairwoman.

She nodded.

I opened my laptop. Beside me, Miriam waited instead of speaking over the pause. I searched the index Owen and I had built from the produced Red Cedar records.

Three invoices appeared.

Laundry. Medical waste. Refrigerated collection.

All billed to Red Cedar Biologics at Unit 4B.

“Ash Grove shares a service address with Red Cedar,” I said.

Sabine crossed one leg over the other. “Many medical organizations lease common facilities.”

“Then the ownership documents should settle it.”

“This is not a corporate inquiry.”

The chairwoman held out her hand to Harrow. “The provider packet.”

For the first time, he hesitated.

He passed over the tablet. The reviewers leaned toward each other. I could not see what they read, only the chairwoman's finger stopping on one line.

“Red Cedar holds the controlling interest,” she said.

Silas's hand flattened against his thigh.

Sabine kept her voice even. “The facility operates under separate clinical management.”

“You proposed placing my client in the custody of a company implicated in her trafficking investigation,” Miriam said.

“Implicated is not convicted.”

“Neither am I,” I said. “But you sent a van for me.”

Someone behind the rail let out a sharp breath.

Sabine turned toward me fully. “Ms. Reed, your understandable distress does not remove the need for competent assessment.”

I felt myself going cold. That familiar suggestion: emotion as proof that someone else should decide.

Silas shifted beside me. I looked at his hand and put mine over it.

“I'm angry,” I said. “You can put that in the record. Then answer the question about the company.”

Miriam requested that Kara be heard.

She had come with us because her treatment records formed part of the existing case. Until now, she had waited beside Maeve, twisting the strap of her bag. At her name, she rose but did not immediately approach.

“Do I have to stand near him?” she asked, looking at Harrow.

The chairwoman directed him to the back of the room.