While the four of them were thinking about Seraphine that night, Seraphine Veyr had already been thinking about Aurelian for much longer than any of them realized.
Not obsessively.
Not in some dramatic way.
Months earlier, back when Aurelian had quietly disappeared from normal Alliance routes and his name stopped showing up in the usual Arcturus movement records, Seraphine had been buried in work inside one of House Veyr's private estates in the core systems.
The estate overlooked Elaris Prime, a blue-white world wrapped in orbital lanes and traffic, but Seraphine rarely paid attention to the view. She had too much on her desk.
Trade disputes from outer colonies.
Settlement petitions from frontier sectors.
Reserve administration reports.
Strategic review requests.
Enough paperwork to keep most people busy for days.
She moved through it steadily.
That was normal for her.
Anyone seeing her there would have understood why her name had spread so quickly despite her age.
