She was already awake when they knocked.
Not for long. Five minutes, maybe ten, lying in the particular quiet of a morning that had nothing required of it yet, Vaelor's arm still across her the way it had been most of the night, the room the same warm dark except for the thin line of light coming under the door.
She had been looking at the ceiling again.
Not the way she had looked at it last night, not with the specific wonder of someone discovering a thing they had not known to look for. This was quieter than that. Just looking. Just being in a room in the morning with nothing asking for her attention yet, which was still new enough that she was paying attention to the newness of it.
Then the knock came.
Two of them. Specific. The particular knock that was not a question so much as a notification, the kind that said we are here and we intend to be acknowledged.
She knew that knock.
