The Pull
Formality was a tool I had always been good at. It required precision, the exact calibration of distance, and a professionalism that communicated both availability for necessary interactions and unavailability for anything else. I had been using it since I was nineteen years old, deploying it in rooms full of wolves who wanted things from me that I had decided not to give, and I had refined it over the years into something close to an art form. I deployed it now with everything I had. The morning after the study, which included the photograph, the one-word answers, and the door that hadn’t slammed, I came to breakfast at the usual time, poured my tea, and reviewed my documents. When Kael came in, I looked up, nodded with the precise degree of acknowledgment that the alliance protocols r
- Writer
