"Are you almost smiling at me right now?"
I straightened my expression immediately and looked at a point just past his shoulder.
He stared at me for another beat. Then something loosened in his shoulders—a small, visible release of tension—and he shook his head slowly, like he wasn't sure what to do with any of this. The conversation. The morning. The whole strange shape the day had taken.
Movement at the door.
Kael, standing just outside the frame. He hadn't knocked. He was simply there, the way Kael tended to be—present before you'd registered his approach. His expression was closed and controlled, but his eyes found me first, checked me over in that brief, practiced way, then moved to Ryker.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, not quite sounding it. "Mindlink from Dad."
Ryker straighte
