Alex was awake but horizontal, which was where he'd been instructed to stay for at least another day. He looked better than yesterday—more color, less of the gray exhaustion that had settled over him through the labor—but there was still the deep-water tiredness of someone whose body had done something enormous and hadn't yet fully reckoned with it.
"How's the ridge?" Alex asked.
"Clear," Leo said. "Storm took a patrol through the northern approach. Nothing unusual." He settled beside Alex, his back against the wall, his eyes moving across the alcove—across his four children distributed among six serpents as though this were the most natural arrangement in the world. "The valley is quiet."
"The shadow."
"Nothing from the valley. Drakar circled it at dawn—no darkness, no cold spots, no change from yesterday." Leo paused. "Which might mean it's waiting. Or it might mean something else."
