Only Neil, who had spent enough time around her by now to notice the smaller details other people might miss, caught the faint tightness that occasionally pulled at the corner of her smile whenever Ileana asked a particularly familiar question or Jane happened to stand a little too close to him during certain parts of the tour.
She said absolutely nothing about any of it, though, choosing instead to play the gracious host completely and without complaint, and Neil found himself quietly grateful for just how well she managed to handle a situation that would have broken most other people's composure entirely.
Ileana, for her part, got along with Cynthia almost immediately, the two of them falling into an easy, natural rhythm of conversation about domain management and the various challenges that came with leading people through an actual crisis.
