Maren read it twice before she said anything.
That was how Aelara knew the situation was serious in a specific way. Maren read things once. She was precise and fast and she retained information cleanly on the first pass and did not need the second. When she read something twice it meant the first reading had produced a result she was checking rather than accepting.
She set the document down.
She said: "The invocation is valid."
Vaelor said: "Yes."
"Formally filed. Correctly structured. The seal matches the historical record of the provision's authorized mark." She looked at the table. "I spent the last hour verifying. I wanted it to be incorrectly filed." She paused. "It is not incorrectly filed."
"No," Vaelor said. "It is not."
Aelara looked at both of them. "Walk me through it. All of it. Not the summary."
Maren picked the document back up.
