The letter arrives on a Wednesday in November, addressed not to the compound, not to me, not to Lucien, but to Iris Vera Varga, care of the Varga compound, in handwriting nobody recognizes. It is the kind of detail that catches in the throat before the mind has even finished processing it, a name that belongs to a child who cannot yet hold a pencil, written across an envelope by a stranger's hand.
Reth brings it to the operations room with the specific careful expression that means he assessed it before bringing it and decided I needed to see it regardless of what the assessment suggested. He has that look he gets when something doesn't trip any of his usual wires and unsettles him more for it.
"It came through the regular postal service," he says, setting it on the table like it might s
