The calendar had a circle on it now.
Ren had drawn it overnight. Forty-sixth day from today, the twenty-eighth of next month, the founding ceremony — the Cult's deadline and ours. The circle was small. Done in the dark blue ink Ren reserved for high-confidence operational markers. Below the circle he had drawn a fine line back across the forty-six intervening days, with hash marks for the tribunal, for Korren's arrival, for the next three cure protocol sessions, for the days he was projecting the additional probes would land. The line did not curve. The work between today and the circle had a shape.
I stood at the central low table and looked at it.
