The Grey set Seraphina and me down in the arrival hall of the Creighton estate, and we stepped out not into a welcome but into the charged hush of a command centre bracing for weather.
The three months since she'd walked into the Frost-Heart Cavern had been a tight coil of waiting, planning, and the slow, sick arithmetic of how outmatched we were. Seeing her beside me now, radiating the settled cold of a new Mid Radiant, wasn't relief so much as the sound of the last lock clicking shut before a siege.
Alastor met us in the corridor. His face was graver than his usual calm, and his eyes went to Seraphina and stayed there a moment, weighing the new glacier in her with a strategist's attention. "Seraphina," he said, and the nod carried a good deal. "Welcome back. Your timing is, as ever, exact."
"The cavern gave what it had," she said. Nothing of the ordeal showed on her surface. Only the depth underneath.
"The conference room is ready," Alastor said. "Everyone's waiting."
