She slept four hours.
Not enough and more than she'd had in four days, which put it somewhere in the category of things she'd take without complaining. The surgeon had come at midnight, retaped the ribs, told her the displacement was worse than before but still short of a break, given her something for the pain that she didn't take. She needed her head clear.
By 5 a.m. she was at the window.
The east courtyard below. Guard rotation running clean. Gabriel had restructured it personally, new faces in new positions, none of the patterns Leni had spent six years memorizing. The building felt different. Tighter. Like something that had been holding its breath had started exhaling, slowly, one rotation at a time.
She dressed. Stood at the mirror for a moment. The bruising along her cheekbone had come up dark overnight, the lump above her ear less swollen but still present. Her left side pulled when she breathed too deep. She breathed shallow and went to find Val.
---
