The restructuring order arrived in a grey envelope.
Neth Myrvalis had received grey envelopes before, institutional correspondence, administrative directives, the routine machinery of governance that passed through the Ministry of Whispers the way water passed through a canal: continuously, predictably, shaped by the channel it flowed through. Grey envelopes were not urgent. Grey envelopes were not classified. Grey envelopes contained routine information, the output of institutions functioning normally, and the grey envelope on his desk was the institution functioning normally in response to his ninety-four years of abnormality.
