Three weeks after the grave, the pregnancy was impossible to ignore.
Not that anyone had been ignoring it. The floor had known for weeks, had adapted with the professional courtesy of people who understood that acknowledging something directly was different from making it a subject. But at twenty-two weeks, with twins, the physical reality of it had moved beyond the category of things that could be treated as simply Seren's business.
He was aware of this.
He had been aware of it for a week.
He was managing the awareness the way he managed everything — by preparing for it, by being ready before it became a problem, by controlling the shape of how it arrived rather than waiting for it to arrive on its own terms.
He arrived at seven fifty-one.
Same time as always.
Logged in.
Opened the task list.
The floor assembled around him in the familiar sequence.
