Due's letter came up with the morning bread, folded into the wax paper the baker used for everything.
It had taken eleven days to cross a distance a fast rider could close in four.
That was the price of the slow channel.
Nothing sent through it could ever be urgent, because by the time it arrived, the urgent thing was already over.
Alistair read it standing at the window.
Due never wrote the way he talked.
On paper, he was clean and ordered, almost severe, and only here and there a word slipped through that gave him away, picked because it amused him rather than because it was correct.
The letter began plainly enough.
I am going to tell you the worst of it first, so you do not have to wade through three paragraphs of charm to reach it, the way you usually make people wade through to reach you.
Alistair's mouth twitched, and he decided against it.
Multiple factions are coordinating against us. Two probes hit the eastern edge in one week, and Sable confirmed both.
