Chapter 85

Aria's POV

The knowledge compact draft arrived on a Tuesday morning, six weeks almost to the day after Thessa and Beth had begun.

Fifty-one pages. Clean structure, precise language, the particular quality of a document that had been argued into clarity rather than written into it. You could feel the work in it — not laboriously, but the way you can feel the grain in good wood. Something that had been shaped by sustained attention.

I read it twice before sending comments.

My comments were minor. Three points of language that needed sharpening, one section where the sequencing felt slightly off, one place where Beth and Thessa had...