Aldric talked for three hours.
Not continuously — there were pauses, the specific pauses of someone deciding how to describe things they'd been keeping close for a long time, and there were moments where Vael added detail or corrected a date or looked at the table with the expression of someone hearing things confirmed that they'd suspected and found the confirmation worse than the suspicion.
Seren took notes.
I hadn't asked her to. She'd simply produced a notebook at some point in the first hour and begun writing with the focused efficiency of someone who understood that the information moving through the room was the kind that needed to be recorded rather than remembered.
Mara listened without speaking.
Kael stood at the head of the table and asked precise questions at precise momen
