The executive office in Artemis Tower still smelled faintly of fresh paint.
A stack of contractor reports occupied one corner of Cael's desk. Replacement schedules, inspection approvals, and budget revisions sat neatly arranged in separate folders. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city glowed beneath the fading orange light of evening. Traffic moved steadily again. Construction crews worked late shifts beneath portable floodlights. Recovery had become routine.
Galathea sat sideways, her long legs stretched the length of the leather three seater, reading through a packet of reopening schedules.
Neither of them had spoken for several minutes.
The silence felt normal now.
Not the silence of abandoned systems.
Not the silence of dead archives.
Just the silence of two people working in the same room.
Cael signed another document.
Set it aside.
Opened another.
Then stopped.
He watched her form, comfortable on the sofa, in his office, in his presence.
