Chapter

Sable left without warning on a Tuesday.

Not fled. Not disappeared. She left a message through the broadcast in the early morning before anyone was awake, her frequency signature carrying the composed quality of a decision made and settled rather than one being made in the moment. Marina felt it arrive while she was still in that half-state before full waking and she pressed her palm to the floor of the sleeping space and read it before she was fully conscious.

The message said: I am going back east. The work I can do here is done. What remains is yours and the children's and Silvain's and Cian's, not...