NEVA POV
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Mara told me on the seventh day of the twelve.
Morning. Kitchen. The hour before the compound fully assembled itself — the specific quiet window between Ryke taking Ren and the crew arriving, the few minutes that were just me and the kettle and whatever the day was building toward.
She came in the way she moved now — with the specific quality of someone who'd made a decision and was in the aftermath of making it, where everything that wasn't the decision felt briefly lighter.
"I talked to someone in the third territory," she said. "A woman Pell introduced me to through the network. She runs a small operation — not a pack, something more like what Bekah has here." She wrapped her hands around the cup I gave her. "She has room for someone who's good at getting people to tru
