Her attention was entirely on them.
The particular focused quality of someone giving their hands something very specific to do so the rest of them can be somewhere else.
Viktor looked at her for a moment.
"Olivia," he said.
She was beside him. "Yes?"
"Helena needs someone to check her. The pregnancy — the third trimester vitals should be logged."
Olivia's eyes went briefly to Vivian at the garden wall. Back to Viktor. The golden-amber of them carried a quiet that said she'd understood what he'd said and also what he hadn't.
"Of course," she said.
She left.
The sound of her robes moving through the grass, the gentle creak of the tower's interior door, and then quiet.
Viktor walked toward the garden wall.
His footsteps on the grass were not loud. But Vivian heard them.
Her shoulders moved — a single small upward shift, the reflex of a body that had been waiting to hear exactly this and had not decided what to do about it.
She straightened. Stood.
Turned to face him.
