NEVA POV
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After Holt said no, the evening got quieter.
Not in the way of something ending — in the way of something settling. The kitchen slowly emptied, each person finding somewhere else to be with a purpose that felt organic rather than orchestrated, until it was just Ryke and me at the table with the last of the tea going cold.
He was looking at me.
I was already looking at him.
"The witnesses," I said.
"I asked them before dinner," he said. "They're ready."
I thought about the word *ready* and what it meant in this context. The crew, Reine, Caius, Lera, Bena — all of them having watched these weeks accumulate into tonight. All of them knowing, in the way the compound had started to simply *know* things, that this was where it had been going.
"Are you?" I said.
He held my
