The breakfast room at the capital residence faced west.
Different from the estate, which had mountain light in the mornings — the Ignis Range catching the early hour and holding it long enough to be useful. Here the fifth-hour light came in flat and grey through a window that looked at the building opposite. The residence built into its row, each structure flush with the next, each window level with another across the narrow street. The room had the quality of a space used correctly and not loved. Dark wood. Proportions that wasted nothing. A table sized for four with two chairs set.
Alistair was already seated when Vane came down.
He was reading something — a single page, folded once, the kind of notation that hadn't come through the band network. He looked up when Vane entered. The page went face-down on the table without ceremony, the movement of someone who had nothing to conceal and didn't perform concealment.
"Sit," he said.
