Hira ran the scan at eight in the morning.
Selah stood in the containment ring with her arms at her sides, frost pulled so far inward that her skin looked human-pink under the fluorescent lights.
The scanner hummed. The readout populated.
E-rank, ice-elemental, bonding frequency within standard parameters. Every single number fell dead center of the acceptable range.
Hira stared at the tablet for eleven seconds. Soren counted them.
"These are clean," she said.
"Good."
"Yesterday her readings were a mess. Subsurface ice output at three hundred percent of expected baseline, bond signature oscillating between F-rank residual and something the scanner couldn't classify."
Hira turned the tablet toward him. "Today, she reads textbook."
"She recalibrated."
"In one night?"
"She's talented."
Hira set the tablet down.
She pulled a second device from her case, smaller, shaped differently than the standard Bureau equipment.
