Ink surges up through the desk grain beneath Soul-Cutter. The wood softens, darkens, and begins to drink at the blade’s tether like a starving mouth.

The ledger on the desk goes frantic, pages snapping and fluttering, its hunger turning sharp and clever as it tries to swallow the beacon whole.

Sable reaches out, palm to the shaking wood. Their chosen name rings through the office walls, not as speech, but as a legal shape, a key that fits somewhere old and hidden.

The black script in the desk jerks sideways. Reeve-tracking sigils recoil, then bend, then begin writing over themselves as the room’s records answer to Sable instead of the blade.

The administrative hunger lurches off Soul-Cutter and into the ledgers, the shelves, the ink-stains in the beams. The office groans as if relieved and offended at once.

For a heartbeat, the blade stays planted, steady. The tether is no longer being devoured, it is being reassigned, and the weapon holds.

Kynes pulls back from the desk, staff coming with him. The ink on the surface keeps moving, but it no longer reaches for his hand.

Sable releases the liquefied wood and steps away from the blade without looking back.

The desk gives a low, wet pulse, then settles into a dull, localized hush. Soul-Cutter stays planted, its glow steady and contained.

Kynes turns for the door. Behind him, the ledger pages stop thrashing and lie open, as if satisfied with a new name and a new burden.