It had been three weeks since the gate.
Three weeks of Neva at the compound's daily rhythms — working with Cole on the territorial supply chain, sitting at meals with the attentiveness of someone gathering information and filing it, walking the perimeter with Aldis and Roan, learning the compound the way she learned everything: systematically, without announcing the learning.
And Marcus.
They moved around each other with the specific choreography of two people who are aware of each other at all times and are being careful not to make that awareness into a statement before they understand what statement they want to make.
Luna had seventeen photographs already.
She had not shown them to anyone.
This was remarkable restraint and she wanted it acknowledged.
I acknowledged it by saying
