The deliberation lasted four hours.
Mira spent the first hour thinking through contingencies — what each possible ruling meant, what the next move was in each scenario, how the response changed depending on which way Sova landed. She spent the second hour talking through those contingencies with Damien in the low voices of two people who had learned to think together. She spent the third hour in the particular focused stillness of someone who had done everything available to her and was now waiting for the world to do its part.
The fourth hour she spent watching Greer.
He sat across the waiting room with the contained stillness of a man who had set down something heavy and wasn't sure yet what his arms felt like without it. He looked lighter, in a way that had nothing to do with his phy
