"The Langfords," she said, when I reached her. Not a greeting. An observation.
"Yes," I said.
"The middle child has been watching Dax since they arrived," she said. "The way children watch Alphas when they're trying to understand the category."
I looked. She was right — a girl of about five, dark-haired, standing very still near her father's leg and tracking Dax across the room with the specific focused attention of someone conducting a serious assessment.
"I should go say hello," I said.
"Yes," Marisol said. "You should." She was smiling with the precise quality of someone watching something that makes them entirely satisfied. "Take Dax."
I went to get Dax.
He was in conversation with Richard Holt and two other council members about something that had the measured register of a con
