Vaela took almost an entire minute to answer.
Not because she had failed to understand the question, but because apparently she had spent her entire life without imagining that it could ever be asked.
Behind her, the other four members of the Navigation Council remained equally still, their seals still resting around the Core while the bronze rings turned more slowly.
Daren stared at his own hands.
Mara watched everyone with an expression Kael had already learned to recognize as belonging to someone who preferred problems involving bad winds, broken hulls, and pirates, because at least those things usually did not require an entire city to define its own existence.
Sylphie kept her palm against the Core, following the flows sustaining Selvanor and confirming through her silence that they still had some time.
Vaela finally took a deep breath.
"You're asking the Council?"
"No."
That surprised her.
Kael pointed toward the streets beyond the Core's tall windows.
