The Absol got to the plaque first, ears already forward. Its weight tipped toward the stone the same way it always tipped toward anything that didn't sit right with it. Dana caught up a step later and rested a hand on its shoulder, an old habit by now. The two of them looked at the same empty space at once.
"Still nothing carved in." She traced the plaque's edge with her thumb, checking a groove that wasn't there yet. "Print shop's called twice this week wanting a final line before they cut the mold."
"I know." Orion looked at the stone instead of at her. It hadn't changed since the last time he'd stood in front of it.
Latias walked a pace behind them, her tablet dark for once instead of open to the guest list. She'd been like that most of the morning, present without pushing into anything, her attention on the half-finished branch the same way it settled on most things that hadn't decided what they were going to become yet.
Dana straightened, arms crossing the same stubborn line they'd held the day Doom walked into the yard uninvited.
"You told me leave it as is. That was fine when 'as is' meant a blank line on a proof somewhere. It's a different thing now that it's a piece of stone I have to hand off to a crew this week."
"Doom sent his terms." Orion made himself say the rest of it before he could find a reason to put it off again. "He doesn't want it buried, and he doesn't want a co-sponsor line nobody bothers to read. He wants actual credit, somewhere people would see it walking in the door."
Dana didn't answer right away. She sized up the plaque the same way she'd sized up Doom himself in the yard, weighing how much patience his price was worth.
"That's not a new problem. That's the same one with a number finally attached to it."
"More or less the same one, yes."
"You told me once he doesn't hand anything over for free." She crouched and ran a finger along the base of the plaque for no real reason, mostly to have somewhere to put her hands. "I remembered that part."
"So did I, eventually."
"A stranger walks in on the fifteenth, sees his name up there, they're going to read this whole place as his. Not yours. Yours tucked in somewhere for good measure." She stood, brushing dust off her knees, and met his eyes straight on. "That's the cost if you say yes."
"And if I say no?"
"Then it's clean and it's yours, until somebody finds out anyway, and then it's yours and it's dishonest on top of it. I'm not going to pretend either one of those is free, because neither one is."
Orion had come out here braced to explain Doom's price to her from the beginning. Instead she'd taken the one new piece of it, the credit, and set it down beside everything she already knew, like the blank line on that proof sheet had been waiting on exactly this the whole time.
Latias hadn't said anything through any of that. When she finally spoke, it wasn't about the plaque at all.
"Do you believe him, Orion?" She held his eyes longer than the question needed to run. "That he means it, that this isn't about controlling anything anymore. Or is this really about what everyone standing around us is going to think of you if you say yes."
He didn't have a clean answer for her either, and it settled heavier than anything Dana had just laid out for him. Dana had handed him a cost to weigh against another cost. Latias was asking him to admit something about himself, and he still didn't know which version of the truth he was going to end up telling her.
They kept walking, past the plaque, toward the visitor entrance where the framework still stood open on one side. Marcus caught up with them halfway there, a folder already half open in his hand before he'd finished closing the distance.
"Got a minute." He fell into step beside Orion without waiting for an answer. "Press office forwarded something. Reporter's asking about Latverian involvement out here, ahead of the opening. Wanted it in front of you before anybody sends a reply."
"Which outlet is it."
"Still checking, far as I know. Reads generic enough it could be nothing." He glanced between the three of them, caught whatever was sitting underneath the quiet, didn't ask about it, and held the folder out to Dana before he'd even finished turning to go. "Wanted you to have it either way."
He was gone again a moment later, same as always, already moving toward whatever came next on somebody else's list.
Dana opened the folder, scanned the single printed sheet, and closed it.
"You want me to sit on this too."
"For the time being, yeah."
"That's the second thing this week you've asked me to sit on for the same reason." She tucked the folder under her arm. "No comment for now, and hold the plaque. I need to make a decision before either of those go out the door."
"I've needed to make that decision since the day he showed up in this yard."
"I'm aware."
Her eyes stayed on him a moment longer, then eased, the closest thing to agreement she was offering him today. The Absol fell into step beside her as she turned back toward the entrance, and Latias lingered a second longer, her question still hanging in the air between her and Orion, unanswered but not forgotten.
They finished the walkthrough in a quiet that wasn't uncomfortable, more full than anything else. The framework for the visitor entrance stood open where the netting hadn't gone up yet, scaffolding bracing one corner of the main hall. Past it, the plaque waited, bare stone catching the afternoon light, holding a name nobody had agreed on yet.
***
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