She had presented in front of rooms before — case competitions, recruiting panels, the specific gauntlet of cold-calling that Professor McIntyre had put the whole cohort through all fall — but standing outside the presentation room on capstone day, waiting for her name to be called, Margaret found her hands were shaking in a way none of those earlier rooms had ever quite managed to produce.
"You're going to be fine," Zarina said, beside her in the hallway, steady in the specific way she'd become over the past year, the calm at the center of every storm Margaret had ever dragged her into. "You've presented this project to me four times this week alone. You know it cold."
"Knowing it cold and saying it out loud to a review panel are different sports."
"They're the same sport. You're just
