The drawing stayed on the table.
The team worked around it without referring to it. Someone — Liora, probably, though I hadn't seen her do it — had moved one of the leyline-lamps closer so the paper was lit without being bright. The shaking letters caught the light evenly. Nobody touched the drawing. Nobody looked away from it for very long either.
*He protects me from everything.*
Nine o'clock at night.
The common room had reorganized itself into the shape work took when a team that had been together two months sat down to do work that didn't have a clean shape yet. Ren had three notebooks open at his desk. Valeria had spread papers across the small dining table in the alcove and was conferring with him through brief written notes carried back and forth by Liora, who had volunteered for the messenger role because it kept her moving. Liora handled grief through motion the way she handled fights through motion. The team had absorbed that about her months ago.
