I found them in the eastern garden on the fifth day.
Nessa and Soren — sitting on opposite ends of the bench near the creek, not speaking, with the particular quality of two people who had ended up in the same space by separate decisions and were now existing in proximity without the energy required to make it mean something. Soren had his elbows on his knees and his pale eyes on the water. Nessa was watching him the way she watched everything — cataloguing.
I sat on my rock and said nothing.
After a few minutes, Soren said, without looking up, "She didn't take it."
I knew what he meant. "No."
"She could have." He turned his head and looked at me. Up close, without the cold courtyard frequency and the high stakes and the everything of that morning, his face was younger than I'd proces
