The car arrived on the ninth day after the seal.
Lena felt it before she saw it — felt it the way she'd learned to feel everything that entered the field's reach, a frequency arriving at the valley's edge with a quality that was immediately, unmistakably different from anything she'd catalogued so far. Not Drake's discordance. Not the warmth of Marcus or Petra or Nell or James or Thomas arriving as refugees. Not Mira's hundred-and-twenty-year patience.
This was — she sat at the kitchen table with her tea and tried to find the word.
Official.
That was the closest she had. The frequency had the quality of a thing that had filled out forms about itself. A presence that had been authorised.
She looked up.
Aries was already at the window.
"You feel it," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"What
