"She is well," Seraphina says.
"She is now," I say.
Maximus inclines his head, the slightest formal acknowledgment. "Elena is in the medical wing if you need her."
"I do not." Seraphina's hand smooths over Mira's hair. "But I thank you for it."
Mira lifts her face from her mother's shoulder. Says something low. Seraphina nods once.
Maximus touches my elbow, and we walk back through the compound without speaking.
The conference roomis full when we get there. Julian's maps are already spread across the long table, intelligence screens cycling data in the corner. Marcellus has taken the window instead of his usual wall. Arms crossed tighter than usual. Isabelle has been running supply cost projections at the far end of the table. Nobody talks. Everybody waits.
When Seraphina walks in, everyone stops.
Mira is half a step behind her, one hand fisted in the back of her mother's coat. Drained. Holding on.
Ethan stands. Caleb sets his tablet face down on the table. Isabelle goes still.
No one moves. The space adjusts around her. Marcellus's arms come uncrossed. Julian's hand stops mid-reach for a marker and stills.
Seraphina takes the chair at the table's head. Mira sits at her left, close enough that her shoulder leans against Seraphina's. Seraphina's hand settles on Mira's forearm.
I take a spot to Maximus's left and let my arm rest against his. His eyes track from Seraphina to the screens to the door and back. Caution comes off him. Heavy. I don't look at him. He doesn't look at me. We both watch Seraphina.
Seraphina looks at each face in turn. Thorough. When her gaze reaches me, I hold it. Her expression shifts at the edges. Almost a smile. Not quite.
"I was in Thessivane for thirty days," she says. Her voice is unchanged. Low, accented, precise. "I am told nine days have passed here."
Julian looks up from the table. His eyes go to Seraphina, then to the intelligence screens, then back.
Thirty days inside. Nine days outside.
"The Lithenmere healed what the mortal world couldn't." She doesn't elaborate. "And I learned things I did not know about my family."
Nobody pushes.
"He sent me back with a message."
She reaches into her coat and draws out a piece of vellum. Heavy, pale gold, carrying the same vibration as the courtyard spiral. She holds it out across the table. Toward Maximus.
Maximus takes it. He reads it once. His face does not change. He hands it to me.
"Read it out," he says. Low. For the room.
I take the vellum. The outer script is the same tight spiral as the courtyard, letters with no Roman analog. Beneath it, in clean modern English, a translation in handwriting I don't recognize. Exacting. Unhurried.
I read it once to myself. Then aloud.
To Lord Maximus of the southeastern dominion.
A debt has stood between us for three centuries. I would see it answered before the season turns.
Come to the Court of Stone. What I know of the buffer zone, and of the one who has built within it, will be told to you in my hall and not before. An alliance, ratified before the courts and binding under our oldest law, waits on your word.
The way is open. The wards will know you. Bring the woman whose mark you carry. Bring my daughter. Bring my granddaughter.
Lanthar, King of Thessivane.
