POV: Ayla

I do not go back to the holding chamber to convince her.

I go back because some lines are not finished until they are spoken in the same air as the person who tried to use them.

The guards let me through without comment. The bond tells me the three of them know where I am and have chosen, this time, not to follow me to the door. That choice is its own kind of respect. I carry it with me into the room.

She is as I left her. Restraints. Patient eyes. The long continuity of a design that has treated my bloodline as a problem to...