A month into their careful, patient presence in Drennick, something shifted.
It happened the way most significant things happened in this work — not in a meeting, not in any arranged conversation, but sideways, in an ordinary moment. Tavri and Iris had been eating dinner at the modest place that had become their regular spot, the only real gathering point in Drennick's sparse center, when Hale appeared in the doorway, looked at them for a long moment, and sat down without being invited.
This was new. Every previous interaction had been on his terms, in his space, with the careful controlled quality of a man who decided exactly what he revealed and when.
"I've been watching you for a month," he said. "Both of you. The way you work. What you did in Hollowmere — Corvin told me more, a few
