Darius found out about the conversation the way he found out about most things in the compound — through the bond, which had carried the specific quality of my emotional register for the hour we were working through it.
He said nothing about it that evening.
He gave me the space of it the way he gave me all spaces — present but not pressing, the warmth of his attention without the weight of his involvement.
I told him anyway, at the river window, the specific late hour that had become the true-things hour.
"Luna said something that landed wrong," I said. "We worked through it."
"Yes," he said. He had heard this much through the bond.
"She's been filing me as the person the story centers on rather than the person who acts in it," I said. "And I've been telling myself the same story ab
