The handover meeting lasted exactly twenty-three minutes.
That, more than anything, told Jasmine what she needed to know.
There were no debates.
No revisiting of old arguments.
No strategic hedging disguised as questions.
The framework had moved from initiative to infrastructure.
When systems stop arguing with rules, they have accepted custody of them.
Jasmine signed the final internal authorization and slid the folder across the table.
"Oversight transitions to the standing body as of Monday," she said. "My office retains escalation authority only."
The chair of the permanent committee nodded. "We'll maintain the audit cadence."
"Maintain," Jasmine repeated. "Not relax."
"Understood."
She stood, shook hands, and left without looking back.
Outside the building, the city sounded unchanged. Traffic. Voices. Movement.
That was the measure of success.
Across town, Evan encountered the transfer in a far quieter way.
A new staff member introduced herself at the beginning of class.
"I'm the student autonomy liaison," she said, slightly awkward. "If you have questions about support or consent, my office is open."
No applause.
No reaction.
Just note-taking.
After class, a student asked Evan, "Was there always someone like that?"
"No," he replied. "That's new."
"But it feels normal."
Evan smiled. "That's how you know it worked."
The first test of permanence came quickly.
A regional administrator proposed consolidating several optional programs under a single "excellence track." The language was efficient. Resource-driven. Technically compliant.
The liaison flagged it.
Not as a violation.
As a risk.
The standing committee reviewed the proposal, cited precedent, and required structural separation before approval.
No headlines followed.
No outrage trended.
The proposal was revised quietly.
Power adjusted its posture without complaint.
At the community center, Evan noticed fewer urgent questions and more ordinary ones.
"Can you help me think this through?"
"Is it okay to change my mind?"
"Who do I talk to if something feels off?"
These were not crisis questions.
They were civic ones.
One evening, Evan found an old notebook in a drawer—the same one he had used when documenting incidents, dates, phrasing, pressure points.
He flipped through it slowly.
Every page belonged to a past the system no longer officially recognized.
He closed the notebook and did not throw it away.
Archives mattered.
Elsewhere, Jasmine prepared her final exit memo—shorter than any she had written before.
Transition Note:
The framework no longer depends on advocacy. It depends on habit.
She sent it without attachments.
Her phone buzzed minutes later.
Margaret Hale.
We're onboarding the liaison role permanently. Board approved it unanimously.
Jasmine read the message once.
Then archived it.
That decision had not required persuasion.
It had required inevitability.
Weeks passed.
Nothing dramatic happened.
Which was the clearest signal of all.
The rules were no longer associated with her name.
Or Evan's.
Or any moment of rupture.
They belonged to the system now—and, more importantly, to the people moving through it.
On a quiet afternoon, Evan watched students leave campus laughing, arguing about trivial things, planning futures that felt open rather than constrained.
No one thanked him.
No one needed to.
Across the city, Jasmine walked away from the building for the last time, unnoticed, exactly as she preferred.
Custody had been transferred.
Not just of authority.
Of responsibility.
And responsibility, once distributed, was the one thing power could not quietly take back.