KAIRA

The office was not empty, I stopped in the doorway and for a second my brain genuinely did not know what to do with what my eyes were showing it. There was a woman sitting on Professor Zane's desk like it was hers, her legs crossed at the ankle, very comfortable, very settled, the kind of comfortable that meant she had been comfortable there before.

She looked up when I came in and her face arranged itself into something that was polite but not particularly warm.

"Hi," she said. "Are you looking for the professor?"

She looked down at the papers I was holding, Draven's report in one hand...