Marcus talked to Flynn that night.
She didn't hear it — she was in the library with Odessa, going through the second phase of the preparation workings that had been scheduled for this evening, and the library was at the opposite end of the house from the room Flynn used for painting. But she felt it, at the edge of her awareness, the way she felt significant conversations in the house: a quality of attention, a frequency shift, something becoming present that hadn't been present before.
She filed it.
She kept working.
The preparation working's second phase was — Odessa had said more complex and had not been understating. It required both of them at the table with the texts open and the Aldric manuscript specifically in the centre, and it required Lena's direct participation rather than
