Selah's plan held for nine days.
Mona learned the surface from Joan at night and cost him nothing doing it.
Maren got her drills capped even.
Dani got her hour.
The balance stopped its slow drop, and Yara, counting, reported the note holding steadier than it had in weeks.
Nine days of the plan working.
On the tenth the monitor was standing at the classroom door in Council gray, and she was holding an envelope, and she was smiling.
Soren knew the smile before he read the paper.
It wasn't the smile from before.
Months back she'd offered him two roads and he'd built a third, traded his own metrics to keep one line of the pack unwritten.
That had been a negotiation. Both of them had a piece of the table.
This smile had no table in it.
◆◆◆◆
"You remember our arrangement," she said.
"I remember I kept something out of your file."
"You did. Cleanly. I couldn't touch it." She held the envelope but didn't offer it yet.
