Selene was ready in twenty-five minutes.She stood in the old forest with the cypher case closed and locked under her arm and the particular quality of stillness she carried before large operations, the kind of stillness that was not absence of movement but complete internal organisation. Everything sorted, prioritised, loaded and ready. She had listened to Kael’s briefing on all three locations without interrupting, asked six precise questions at the end, and spent the remaining time constructing her approach in silence.Watching her I felt something that had no clean name. Not quite pride because pride implied I had made her what she was, which was not accurate. She had made herself what she was through twenty years of relentless determined work. What I felt was closer to recognition. The particular sensation of seeing someone arrive fully at themselves.She had arrived.“The eastern location first,” she said to me. “It is the most heavily guarded and has the youngest children. I wa
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