The compound was quiet in the way it was only after everything had been done — perimeter checked, reports filed, the administrative life of a territory that never fully stopped having been attended to and set aside for the hours it could be set aside.
Darius came to his rooms and found me already there.
Not waiting — I had stopped performing the anxiety of waiting, which was progress. I was on the window seat with one of Maren's historical texts on Ashveil manifestation that I was reading not to extract information but because the cadence of old language was the specific kind of calming that required engagement without urgency. My feet were tucked under me. Darius's coat — yes, still, the borrowed coat that had become simply mine — was draped over my shoulders like a shawl.
He stopped i
