~Selene's POV~
The message arrives through Miriam, not through Caden directly, a careful distinction Selene notices the moment her mother sets her phone down on the kitchen table and says, "Rhys texted me."
"What did he say?"
"He thought I should know before you heard it secondhand. There's an ultimatum. From Ironmere." Miriam slides the phone across the table so Selene can read the message herself, the short, careful paragraph Rhys has clearly composed with some thought about how much to include and how much to leave for Caden to explain in his own time, if he chooses to explain it at all.
Selene reads it twice. Dorian's demand. The territorial claim. The thirty-day deadline. Vivienne's likely hand in the wording, which Rhys mentions only as a suspicion, careful not to state it as con
