RYKE POV
---
Mitch worked through the night.
Ryke knew this because he could see the light under the back room door from the kitchen, and because at two in the morning when he came down for water, the sound coming through the door was the specific rapid-key sound of Mitch Avaro at his most focused — not the careful considered typing, the kind where the thoughts were already finished and he was simply transferring them.
He didn't disturb it.
He got his water. He stood at the kitchen counter in the dark. He thought about Crel Daven, which he'd been doing in the controlled way — specifically, productively, not the other way — since the back room meeting. He filed what he knew, cross-referenced it with what Mitch had, and arrived at the same place Mitch had arrived: the private registrati
