A long silence.
"That meets the threshold," Satou said.
"Yes," Loki said. "It does."
—-----------
Lyra spoke quietly from the reading bench.
"If Chronus has moved his entire population to an unmapped location," she said, "and if his city being empty was a requirement rather than a side effecht — there are three logical purposes." She held up one finger. "He moved them to safety before doing something destructive to his own territory. Something he didn't want his people caught in." Second finger. "He moved them because he needs that number of people for something that requires population — rituals, temporal operations, a large-scale magical working that needs living participants." Third finger. "He moved them to a staging location. Building toward something. Preparing a force in a place no one is watching."
She lowered her hand.
"All three interpretations are serious," she said. "The third one is the most dangerous."
