It came from Tavri, who had spent three years getting good at the attunement, and who came to Sera one morning not with a question but with an observation, which was, Sera had learned, Tavri's more dangerous mode.
"I've been thinking," Tavri said, "about what the Read can't do."
"All right," Sera said.
"You've told me — what it finds is present intent. What someone is toward, right now. Not history, not future, just the current quality of what they're pointing at." Tavri held her tea. "But I've been noticing something, in the territories we've been visiting for the Ledger work. The carriers we find — after we tell them the truth, after the suppression starts releasing — there's a period where the attunement is harder to read. Not impossible. Just — noisier."
"Yes," Sera said. "I've not
