Damien’s POV
The call came in at nine-seventeen. I'd been awake since five. Sleep had been intermittent — two hours, then the ceiling, then another hour, then the ceiling again. The floor-sitting at 2 AM had done something I hadn't expected, which was settle me enough to sleep at all, so I counted it as a net positive and didn't examine it further.
I was working through Rhen's updated surveillance report when the phone lit up. Elder Cass. I let it ring once more. Not avoidance — the habit of composing myself before conversations that required it. My father had taught me that at twelve. One breath. The room. What I knew and what I didn't. I picked up.
"Damien." Her voice was exactly as I remembered — steady and measured, carrying the particular quality of someone who had been in rooms wh
