It’s said there isn’t a soul in Crache outside their ranks who knows where the Protectorate Ministry is located. They have no chambers or quarters in the Spectrum, at least none above ground. There are rumors they live and work in secret far below the Spectrum floor, in subterranean caverns that date back before the Renewal and the very founding of Crache itself. That’s why they clad themselves all in black, so they may wear the cloak of darkness to which they’re accustomed out into the light of day.

Lexi knows very well those rumors and all others are worth about as much as a handful of mule dung.

It’s not difficult to hide a building, even a large one, when you control virtually every piece of information released to the public. She imagines it’s even easier when your entire existence is structured around secrecy and subterfuge. It’s the Protectorate Ministry’s job to keep Crache’s confidence while learning everything about its enemies they don’t want Crache to know. Concealing an address is child’s play to such people.

Yet they do intentionally cultivate themselves with an air of the removed, even the otherworldly. The one standing in the Gen Stalbraid reception parlor, who introduced herself to Lexi and Taru simply as Ginnix, looks like a ghost attending her own funeral. Her stark white hair is cut close enough to the scalp to look like the top of a skull, and the strange pink of her eyes is light enough to be almost imperceptible from just a few feet away.

She’s covered in leather and silk as black as pitch from top to bottom. The darkness of her tunic even swallows her entire neck. Her only truly resonant features are the eagle’s eye pendant adorning her chest and the bone-handled dagger politely concealed behind a length of her shoulder cape.

“You say you’re alone in these towers?” Ginnix asks Lexi as the Ministry agent paces around the parlor.

Lexi is seated formally on one of the lounges, Taru standing sentinel beside her.

“Brio’s father occupied the other tower in his retirement until he passed away several years ago,” Lexi explains. “We shuttered most of it after the funeral to conserve. There was a small staff tending to this tower up till a month ago. I was forced to let them go. Now poor Taru is all that’s left to oversee everything.”

“Forced, you say?”

“I reallocated all Gen Stalbraid’s available assets to finding my husband. There simply wasn’t enough left to sustain a full-time staff.”

Ginnix ceases her pacing, turning to face Lexi across the spacious, well-appointed room.

“I’m confused, Te-Gen. The search for your husband has been fully funded and undertaken by Crache on your behalf and on behalf of your Gen.”

“I felt additional resources were required.”

“And have those resources yielded results?”

“They have not.”