It happened at the morning gathering.
Not the formal kind, just the daily assembly of staff and aides and visiting delegates that happened in the main hall before the working day started properly. Tea, light food, people moving through in clusters, the low hum of a building starting itself up. Lyra attended these because she had decided early on that the morning gathering was where you learned the most about a place, not in the formal meetings but in the twenty minutes before them when people were not yet in their professional posture.
She was standing near the window with a cup of tea she was not drinking, listening to the room the way she listened to rooms, when she heard it.
