The first order of business is to prove his credentials, which means it’s a relief that Riftwatch apparently has someone on staff who specialises in decrypting encoded messages. Perhaps it’s even the first hurdle to see if this organisation is simply an assortment of war-harried brute soldiers, or if they’re capable of a more deft hand, a sophisticated touch where it comes to spywork.

So per arrangement, he goes to the office shared between the Chief Cryptographer and the Master of Information — already noting both titles as very much of interest to him — and knocks on the door, poking his head in to find a blonde woman.

There was an envelope sewn into the lining of his jacket; Cassian had carefully ripped out the seams earlier to retrieve a page of what looks like banalities, a letter from a woman written to her husband across the continent, catching him up on the local gossip and the state of their rose-garden.

“Hello. Are you the resident cryptographer?” he asks.