Nobody had put the documents away.
The lamp burned at the reading angle Nyx had set it at on the first day. The cedar case sat open. The diagram first, the contact record second, the personal account with its later addition last — the same order she had laid them. Soru was at his desk in the front room, the sound of his pen moving at the slow deliberate pace of a man who had been maintaining this space for eleven years and had found the maintenance sufficient company.
Vane looked at the diagram.
The Usurper was still running against it. The foundational frequency building an analysis that reached further than it had ever reached before and still did not complete. Ten minutes of looking had told him the diagram was not going to finish it. The diagram gave more of the shape. The shape was not the framework. The framework required something the page could not provide.
He looked at Nyx.
