(Caius)
I was still at my desk when Vorak started.
Not the usual restlessness. Not the low frustrated pressure he'd been maintaining since the shack, the one that came from wanting to claim what was his and being told to wait. This was different. This was alert in a way that had nothing to do with patience or impatience. More like a dog lifting its head at a sound too faint for anyone else to hear.
I set my pen down.
'What is it?' I asked.
'Something changed,' he said.
'What kind of something?' I asked.
He was quiet for a moment. Not the quiet of not knowing. The quiet of trying to find the right words for something that didn't have obvious ones.
'She's different,' he said. 'Not different like she's healing. Different like something in her is waking up.'
I sat back in my chair.
'
