The eleven days ended the way most waiting periods in Rohan's life seemed to end — not with the dramatic flourish some part of him kept irrationally expecting, but with a quiet knock on his lodging room door and a message slate held out by a boy who couldn't have been older than Pell.
"Captain Ashcombe says if you're the passenger Renna Voss vouched for, be at Berth Nineteen by the station's next lighting cycle, or she leaves without you."
Rohan read the note twice, memorised the berth number, and pressed a small coin of thanks into the boy's palm before the kid could vanish back into the Anchorage's crowd.
'Berth Nineteen. Tomorrow. That's it, then. That's really it.'
