"Everything alright?" she said.
"Fine," he said. Too quickly.
She looked at him.
"Caius."
"It's fine," he said again. "Border allocation. Exactly what she said." He reached for Elias, the specific deflection of taking their son as a way to end the conversation before it properly began.
Lera let it go — for now, in public, surrounded by council members who didn't need to witness whatever this actually was.
But she filed it.
The specific careful filing of a woman who had learned, across every complicated year of her life, exactly how to notice the things people tried not to let her see.
---
They left the council hall an hour later, and the drive back to their small house was quiet in a way that felt loaded rather than peaceful.
"Tell me what she actually said," Lera said, once Elia
