The room had the particular quality of held breath.
Seren had moved from the doorway to the wall beside it — not leaving, repositioning, the way she did when she'd assessed that something significant was about to happen and wanted good sightlines to all of it. Vael sat with her hands flat on the table and her expression carefully neutral, which Aria had learned meant she already knew what was coming and had decided how she felt about it. Mara was very still in the way that wasn't stillness at all but the Ardenmere quality of reaching outward, reading the room through frequencies other people couldn't access.
Aria kept her eyes on Kael.
"Tell me," she said.
He set the documents down with the particular care of someone buying themselves one more moment — not stalling, just precise about
