(there was a mistake in the last publish but since I can't delete it some events from the last chapter will be repeated but it's still a new chapter)
Then he sat for a moment at the library desk, the sealed envelope in his hands.
He thought about receiving a letter from his father. About what it might say. About whether it would contain anything that mattered or whether it would be, as Seraphina had acknowledged it might be, entirely strategic.
He thought about being prepared for it to be strategic and reading it anyway.
He thought about being prepared for it not to be, and what that would require of him, and whether he was actually ready for that possibility.
He thought he might not be entirely ready.
He decided to receive it anyway.
Readiness, he'd learned this year, was not always a prerequisite for the right action. Sometimes you did the thing before you were ready, and the doing was what made you ready for what came after.
