NEVA POV
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The Casson representative arrived at eleven.
She was not what I expected.
I'm going to be honest about what I expected: someone corporate, polished in the aggressive way of people who use the word *synergy* without irony, carrying the slight air of a person who'd been told this would be an easy meeting and was prepared to execute accordingly.
What arrived was a woman in her late forties, unhurried, wearing clothes that were expensive in the way that required knowing things rather than spending things. She had the kind of stillness that wasn't composure — it was older than composure. The stillness of someone who read rooms the way Silo read perimeters: comprehensively, before they committed to anything.
My wolf clocked her the moment she walked through the gate.
*She fee
