The nine o'clock meeting Ms. Rook had promised arrived on schedule the next morning, convened on less sleep than anyone admitted to, and it revealed the new headquarters' next flaw: a finished building and a furnished building were not the same thing.
The ops floor had been handed over furnished, technically. The contractor's package: beige modular desks in rows, gray task chairs ordered by the gross, laminate surfaces pretending to be wood from ten feet away.
Vespera, knowing the guild building had to be habitable as soon as possible, and knowing how tight the family's finances were, didn't order a luxury interior furnishing service. It was utilitarian, intended to be upgraded at their own pace.
The map table stood in the middle of it all on its battered folding legs, the one piece of furniture in the building with a soul, and the glass wall overlooking the south lot deserved better company than any of it.
