"How is she doing?" Judge asks, polite but seemingly not too concerned. He doesn't foster attachments to useless emotions for people he barely knows. And I have to remind myself that I am much the same, and I shouldn't take offense.

"She's tired," I tell him. "She needs rest, but the doctor assures me she's going to be fine. The baby too."

"All well and good," he says. "I'm assuming the paperwork that was hand-delivered to my desk today is something you'd like to discuss."

"Yes." I glance at the clock on the wall, realizing he's still at work. Marco didn't waste any time.

"Where did these files come from?"

"Eli has a safe house. A place Abel has been using for his own purposes apparently. It's in his mother's name, so it wasn't ever connected to The Society. Ivy had been hiding..." I clear my throat and cringe at that word. "Staying there during her absence. I sent Marco to search the place for anything useful, and he produced these files."

"I see." There's a sound of a chair creaking, and I can just imagine Judge leaning back as he considers this news. "These are all IVI members. Myself included."

"Yes."

"Names, birth dates, family lineage," Judge murmurs.

"You may have noticed a connection."

"Indeed," he answers solemnly. "There seems to be a dossier for every member who was killed in the same explosion that took your father and brother. Do you know if it was Abel or Eli who compiled them?"

"They are one and the same as far as I'm concerned. I'll be having a conversation with Eli. But what concerns me are the files on Jackson and Marcus Van der Smit. They are connected to The Tribunal. Marcus served before he died, and Jackson still serves."

"You don't think they have anything to do with this?" Judge asks.

"It's difficult to say. But his wife has been feeding my wife information. Befriending her. And it was Jackson who inserted himself into The Tribunal's investigation with Ivy. He made himself out to be a hero, but there's always a chance—"

"Not to mention what he did to Mercedes," Judge adds bitterly.

"Mercedes?" I repeat. "You mean because he didn't marry her?"

Judge is quiet for a pause before he answers. "He should never have courted her if he had no intentions to marry her."