NEVA POV
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Pell looked older than the last time I'd seen him.
Not dramatically — it had been months, not years, and the aging was the specific kind that came from carrying something rather than from time itself. He stood at the gate with the same composed quality he'd always had, but underneath it, something new: the particular tension of a man who had come to say something he wasn't certain would be well received.
"I'm sorry for the hour," he said, before I'd said anything. "I debated waiting. I decided the debate wasn't worth the risk of being too late."
"Too late for what," I said.
He looked at me for a long moment.
"May I come in," he said. "This isn't a conversation for a gate."
I looked at Ryke.
He was already assessing — the specific quick read he ran on anyone whose inte
