(Caius)
I found her in the library the next morning.
She was in the chair by the window with a book open in her lap and she looked up when I came in the way she always looked up, that quick assessment that had become familiar to me now, reading the room before deciding how to be in it.
I knocked on the open door.
She almost smiled at that.
"You can come in," she said.
I crossed to the chair across from her and sat and she watched me settle and waited to find out what I was there for. She had gotten better at waiting without bracing. Not all the way. But better.
"I want to talk to you about the bond," I said.
She went still in the particular way she went still when something landed that she needed a moment with.
"Alright," she said.
I looked at her directly because this was not a
