Vaelor was at his desk at midnight.
She knew because the bond told her before she opened her eyes the particular quality of it when he was awake and working, sharp and focused and running slightly cold the way it did when he was dealing with something he had not yet decided how to handle. She had learned to read the bond the way she read rooms. This one said: still, and careful, and not yet.
She got up.
He did not look surprised when she appeared in the doorway of the workspace. He had probably felt her wake the same way she felt him. Two years of bond management across distance had made them both fluent in the thing without needing to discuss it.
"Go back to sleep," he said.
"You've been awake for two hours," she said. "What is it."
He looked at her for a moment. Then he looked at the document on the desk in front of him.
She crossed the room and stood beside him and read it.
