"Fourteen placements," I said. "You read a room differently when the room determines whether you stay."
Something moved in her face. The grief of it — the specific grief of someone who understands what fourteen placements means and what it cost and what it produced, and sits with both of those things at once.
"Yes," she said quietly. "I imagine you do."
She folded the paper back into her pocket.
"The name," she said. "Have you decided?"
"Not yet. But we're considering it."
"Good." The dry precision, back in full. "You should take your time. Names are not a matter to be rushed."
"Eleanor," I said.
"Yes."
"It's a good name."
She was quiet for a moment. The pearls. The silver rings. The eighty-one years of watching a pack that had, it turned out, needed more watching than she'd mana
