[SERA — POV]
It had been a week.
She was in her office at the Order, writing a report that was due by end of day and was sixty percent finished and genuinely boring, which she found both annoying and slightly comforting—boring reports meant ordinary operations, meant the formal process was doing its work so she didn't have to do hers in the field, meant the particular urgency of the past two weeks had dropped to something sustainable.
Her phone was on the desk, screen up, which was not her usual practice.
At eleven, a message: It's been a week. How are you.
She looked at it.
She thought about what Mira had said: answer honestly.
She picked up the phone. Put it back down. Picked it up again.
She wrote: Still figuring it out. You?
His reply: Same. Then, after a moment: There's somet
