"You're awake," Rafael said, from the doorway of the east study.It was the third night hour. She was in the armchair by the fire, not reading, not working, just present in the particular way of someone who has too much in their mind for sleep. She had the warm cup of tea she kept forgetting to drink, and the Shunned Star texts open on the side table — third volume, the one she had finally gotten to on her cleared day two weeks ago and had been returning to in pieces since."I'm awake," she said. "You should sleep.""I will," he said, which they both understood to mean he wouldn't, not yet. He came in and sat across from her in the other armchair — his chair — and the fire burned between them and the Citadel was quiet in the way it was only at the very deepest hours. "What are you reading?""The origin account," she said. She looked at the page. "The Shunned Star texts have a creation story, of a kind. About the bloodline's beginning. About what the Moon Goddess did and why." She paus
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