Chapter 84

Aria's POV

The formal drafting of the knowledge compact began in early autumn.

Thessa and Beth were the primary drafters, which was the correct choice and one that had required no deliberation. They had developed, over the course of the Fenwick meeting and its aftermath, the kind of working relationship that produces clean documents — one person's instinct for precision meeting another's instinct for scope, each keeping the other honest about where they were overreaching or underspecifying.

I reviewed drafts. Rendell reviewed drafts. Corinna reviewed drafts. But the drafting itself belonged to Thessa and Beth, and we were all wise enough to stay out of their way while...