(Caius)
I was already at the table when she came downstairs.
I'd been there for a few minutes, coffee in front of me, the morning's first documents set aside because Pryor had learned not to bring them before breakfast and I hadn't yet reached for them. The table was set and the kitchen had sent out the first round of food and I was waiting in the way I'd been waiting for most things where she was concerned, without making it obvious and without requiring anything from it.
I heard her on the stairs before she appeared.
Her step was lighter than most wolves her size should produce, a habit of years of moving without wanting to be heard, and it was still there but it was changing in the same way everything else about her was changing, slowly and without announcement. She was moving with
