“You sound like Archivist Zeta, minus the boldfaced hypocrisy.” Frankly, Palamedes probably learned to sit at a desk care of his mother; that has never stopped her from chiding him for his posture. He makes a small mmph—half discomfort, half relief—when she expertly presses the tension away.

Cam answers, and as easily as the question had come to his lips, her reply—and the sense memory that comes with it—knocks the breath out of him. He gives a short nod, the silence stretching for a moment or two whilst he finds his voice. “Without careful examination, one might have assumed that the paint was as old as the rest of the room—or, at the very least irrelevant to the situation at hand. But it was very recent. Recent enough that the painter had left their DNA behind.” He chews on his lip. “The DNA contained markers for Heptanary cancer. I wasn’t even looking; I would have recognized it blindfolded and wearing thermal gloves.”

He turns around in his chair, resting his elbows on the back of it and his chin in his hands. “A riddle, then. Who was he and what did he lie about?”