Dawn came at five-fifteen.
I was already up. The leyline-lamp at my bedside had pulsed me awake at four-forty — the residual of yesterday's transcript still moving through the body's quiet hours, the way some pieces of information would not let the sleeping organism fully release them. I had not fought it. I had risen. I had walked the suite at the slow predawn pace I sometimes used when the night's processing had not produced sleep but had produced something else.
The team was already in motion when I came into the common room.
Lucien at his desk. Ren beside him with a new notebook open — the cover unmarked, the inside pages blank, the binding the heavy Drakeveil stock he reserved for sensitive documentation. Ren had started a fresh book for the cipher work. The previous notebooks would be archived in the vault, accessible but not active. The new book would be the working record from this morning forward.
