Bramwell's POV
The deliberation lasted four hours.
We waited in Tola's upper room. Lenora sat at the window, looking at the city below. I moved between the window and the map table, which was a habit I had apparently not yet broken.
At some point in the second hour, she said: "Sit down. You're making the room anxious."
I sat.
Petra Vane was embroidering something. The sight of it — the needlework, the concentration — made me think of Marcelline, and I had to reorient my mind deliberately. The same activity, performed by someone who had carried a document across three weeks of travel to ensure that the people who needed to know about a prophecy knew it. The same activity as a simple act of patient hands.
Harlan was drawing. Cassian was reading one of Tola's navigational charts with th
