Mira was in the lower archive when Aelara found her.
It was late, an hour past when the twins went down, the kind of hour when the Temple's silver light shifted into something quieter and the stones seemed to breathe differently. Mira sat at the long table with the primary ward documents spread around her in the organized pattern she used when she was working through something methodically, and she did not look up when Aelara came in, which meant she had heard the footsteps and knew who it was and had made a decision about her face before she had to show it.
That particular habit, Aelara now recognized, was entirely her own. She had learned it from watching the woman sitting across from her, and recognizing it in someone else had a specific quality not quite judgment, not quite tenderness. Something in between that didn't have a clean name.
She sat down across from Mira without saying anything and waited.
