It happened on a Tuesday.
Which was deeply, perfectly, characteristically Kaelthorn — the universe's commitment to unremarkable timing for enormous things.
She was standing at the kitchen counter at two in the afternoon. Zevran was at the Hold for what had been scheduled as a half-day session, already coming back, already on the bridge, because Caelen had pointed with the specific precision that had been building since Friday morning and he'd left the session at noon.
She texted him at two-oh-three: *It's time.*
He called in four seconds.
"I'm on the bridge," he said.
"I know," she said. "Drive carefully."
"Fast-carefully," he said.
"That's still not—" she started.
"I'm already across," he said.
She heard the engine.
She held the counter and did the clinical thing — the thing sh
