Sterling arranged the meeting within the week, the company's senior immigration attorney reviewing Reagan's sister's case with the same careful thoroughness she'd have applied to any major corporate filing, and Ivy watched, over the following days, something in Reagan's careful composure finally, genuinely loosen.

"They found the processing error," Reagan reported, joining Ivy and Sterling for dinner two weeks later, something lighter in her voice than Ivy had heard in longer than she'd noticed the weight had been building. "A simple clerical mistake, apparently, but exactly the kind of thing that takes forever to correct without someone actually pushing the right channels. The attorney thinks it'll resolve within a month...