NEVA POV
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The back room held that information in the specific way of a room that had been asked to contain something for which it wasn't designed.
Mitch set his phone face-down. Not the alarming thing — the other one. The gesture he made when something had arrived that required full human presence rather than strategic processing.
Ziko sat down without being told to, which was unusual for him in rooms that didn't have a crisis actively unfolding.
Duke, in the corner, didn't open his sketchbook.
The message sat between us — three lines, Erin Fell's name at the top, and a rearranging of everything.
"How long," I said to Holt.
"The diagnosis came before the convening." Holt kept his voice even in the way he kept most things even, except the evenness was different now — not control,
