He stepped out of the shadow of the rock and his hands were already up before she could reach for anything, which meant he knew she would reach.
Rhea's hand dropped away from her knife the moment she recognized him. Not slowly. Immediately, like the knife hand had never been there.
"Cael," she said.
"Rhea." He said it the way you said the name of someone you had worked alongside before, acknowledging rather than greeting.
Then he looked past her at Aelara. At the twins. He took each of them in with the careful attention of someone who had heard about people for a long time and was now seeing them for the first time and was adjusting his picture.
He was not unkind about it. He just looked.
"You're two hours ahead of where I expected," he said.
"Something pushed us," Rhea said.
He nodded once. He lowered his hands.
