She wasn't supposed to be in the corridor.
She'd been put to bed forty minutes earlier, with the three books and the song and the resting-her-eyes preamble that everyone knew was not resting her eyes, and she'd waited what she considered a reasonable amount of time before getting up, which was approximately four minutes.
She was three and a half. The compound was large and interesting and full of people having conversations she wasn't part of, and she had opinions about this.
She sat in the corridor outside the library, which was where she'd learned conversations happened, and listened.
Maren's voice first — the low, unhurried one that she used when she was talking about something important, which was most of the time. Someone else's voice answering, a woman Rowan didn't recognize. The
