It came through Aldric.
That was how most things that needed to come quietly had come, across the years. Aldric had a specific talent for the quiet delivery of significant information, for arriving without announcement and saying the necessary thing in the necessary number of words and then leaving the space for it to be received.
He came on a Thursday morning.
Aelara was in the workroom. Vaelor was not yet in, he had gone to the archive with Caelum and Mira for the early session they had been doing on Thursdays since the preservation office had made contact, the three of them working through the overlap between the private collection and the Temple texts with the focused energy of people who had found something genuinely worth their time.
She was alone when Aldric knocked.
She looked up.
