~Selene's POV~
It begins at 2:14 in the morning.
She knows the time because she has been awake since two, in the way she has been awake at odd hours for the last several weeks, not from discomfort but from the particular alertness that has settled over her in the final stretch, as if her body has decided that sleep is a luxury it can no longer fully afford. She is sitting up against the headboard when the first contraction arrives, and she notes it with the same careful attention she has been giving everything for the past thirty-six weeks.
She waits.
At 2:31 she has a second one.
At 2:49 a third.
She calls Miriam at 2:52 and says: "I think it's starting." Not urgently. In the register of someone reporting confirmed information.
Miriam appears in the doorway in forty seconds.
She c
