**DAMIEN'S POV
We drove back to Seattle on the twenty-sixth.
Same road, same direction, the city coming back into view as we cleared the last stretch of highway. The return drive was different from the arrival drive in the way that returns always were, fuller somehow, carrying what the days had been.
Elara was quiet.
Not unhappy, quiet. The specific quiet she had when she was integrating something, turning it over and placing it correctly.
At some point she said, "My father marked twelve months of chess lessons."
"Yes."
"He's planning to teach you something specific every month."
"That's what the slips of paper are."
"He's never done that with anyone." She looked at the window. "He was a teacher for forty years. He had hundreds of students. He's never made a private curriculum for
