As soon as Ann woke the next morning, her phone was blinking with a message that she had been waiting for from Eva since Bartholomew had arrived.
'I hope this didn't wake you, but the research that we started into suspicious projects at Veritas…I have a major update for you. I'll be in the records room all day working so feel free to join me at any point and I'll fill you in...'
Eva was already there when Ann stepped inside, sleeves rolled past her elbows, dark hair twisted into a knot that looked like it had fought her patience. A wall monitor glowed with the Veritas archive interface,with half a dozen files pinned open.
The castle's records wing was vastly different already compared to what it had been when Ann first returned.
When Bartholomew had arrived, he brought in a handful of his apprentices to start the long job of modernising the archives and Eva and Coral oversaw the work when they could, making sure that nothing was lost in the shuffle.
One corner of the room now buzzed with servers and scanners, cables running across the stone floor although the rest still looked untouched, with shelves sagging under centuries of ledgers and boxes stacked high and waiting their turn.
The apprentices had also managed to set up a secure line into the Veritas computer system, giving the palace direct access for the first time. It meant that Eva and Coral no longer had to waste hours hauling paperwork back and forth from their city headquarters just to collect signatures or cross-check files. Everything could be handled here if needed, digitally and physical side by side.
Eva looked up with a bright grin and excitedly handed her a fresh smoothie from the cool box that was stood on the table in front of her. One unsorted box sat beside her chair with paper spilling over the edge.
"Everything I pulled on Veritas overnight," Eva said gesturing to the boxes and the screen in front of her,. "Plus anything flagged for restricted council review. If you want another drink let me know. I came prepared because I am not walking away from this console again until my eyes fall out. Coral is on standby for additional snacks and cravings, and i think she managed to get the kitchens to replicate the puppuccinos perfectly so one of those will be here shortly for the whiny wolf."
Maeve's ears pricked up excitedly at the sound of a fresh puppuccino and then flattened again at the last comment.
"Ordinarily I would have a few snarky comments for her but today, I'll let this pass as long as that sweet creamy goodness passes our lips…".
"You say that every time," Ann chuckled, the comment applying to both her wolf and to Eva.
It wouldn't be the first time that Eva had pulled an all-nighter and fallen asleep at her keyboard because she was so focused on what she was researching.
"I mean it every time." Eva answered absentmindedly as she typed a command. "We start here look. Year range, seven years back. Keyword set, Lycan operations, auxiliary enhancement, medical trials, joint security protocols. Do you want to add anything?"
Ann peered at the screen and thought for a moment.
"Maybe use Bartholomew's council seat number in the filter," Ann said. "If he touched it officially, then it will show up. Even if he used proxies, we can chase signatures."
Eva's eyebrows climbed.
"You really think he left his own fingerprints everywhere?"
"Well he's never been particularly technologically minded has he? Unless it was an act of course." Ann paused thoughtfully and sighed, "Plus, we all know how incompetent my predecessor was."
The first batch of files loaded on screen and Eva split them into columns. Ann scanned the headings of each. Facility reports. Shipment manifests. Committee approvals. Research proposals. Some were heavily redacted and some weren't.
Ann dragged a folder into a new window and opened the first memo with a frown as she sipped at her drink.
"Joint tasking: Lycan auxiliaries for border enforcement. Prepared by Committee on Threat Response. Sign-off captured from three seats." She zoomed in on the approvals with a huff of irritation, "Seat numbers three, five, and nine."
"Three is Bartholomew," Eva said. "Five is the finance hawk. Nine is the security fossil with the terrible cologne."
"Can you pull the cross-references?" Ann said. "It would help to have names and not just seat numbers so they can't claim that seats were constantly reassigned."
Eva keyed in the request quickly and in front of her almost instantaneously, the implicated names appeared. Bartholomew. Liora. Hector.
Ann kept reading and her scowl only deepened. The language was pretty clear, but the intent behind each project was not. Trial deployments. Volunteer screening. Oversight to be handled internally. No external review.
Ann sighed in frustration as she racked her brain for any other things that they could look for.
"Check the dates," Ann said. "This started before the first reports of disappearances near the southern woods."
Eva pulled up a map overlay and suddenly colored pins that marked facilities began popping up. Another layer showed incident reports. The timing lined up too neatly for it to be luck.
"Here," Eva said. "Auxiliary Project Alder. Restricted distribution. Bartholomew's name is on the sponsor line."
Ann read the report twice just to be sure that what she was reading wasn't a hallucination.
"Auxiliaries enhanced by coven-linked rituals. Claimed benefits: sharper reflexes, faster recovery, greater loyalty. Claimed risks: none documented within study window. All participants confirmed as volunteers."
"That has to be a lie," Ann said.
Eva opened the attachments and in there, consent forms were blurred by redactions, but enough remained to show identical handwriting. The signature blocks carried the same strange curve on the G and the same tilt on the R.
"Someone filled these out for them," Eva said. "At best that is sloppy. At worst that is forgery."
"Pull the contributor names," Ann ground out, as a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach seemed to be expanding at a rapid rate "I want to see exactly who is responsible for this."