The shelter entrance: empty. Through the weave of the palm frond wall, the fire's reduced glow. Beyond it: the dark.
She turned onto her back.
Looked at the roof.
Preet, three feet away, was on her side.
Her face toward the wall. Her breathing — Celia assessed it. The specific, too-controlled quality of breathing that belonged to someone who was managing their breathing rather than simply breathing.
Awake.
They both lay still.
Then from outside, around the boulder — the large, flat rock he'd been using as a work surface all day, the one that sat between the shelter and the treeline — a sound.
Soft.
The specific, low sound of a woman making a noise she was trying not to make.
Celia's eyes were open.
Preet did not move.
Then: a second sound. Raven's voice, low and even and unintelligible from inside the shelter, carrying the specific register of someone giving an instruction.
