CHAPTER 54
Morning crept into Rafael's office without ceremony.
Light filtered through the tall windows in pale and soft settling across the polished wood of his desk and the scattered remnants of a night that had ended too late.
Papers lay stacked with precision, each about mundane pack details he had not had time to catch up on, the council, the wards that kept the fragile peace intact.
Rafael sat before them already dressed, coat discarded over the back of his chair, sleeves rolled just enough to suggest he had been at this for hours.
He had.
The quiet was deceptive.
Raphael had learned long ago that silence was not the absence of danger only its breath held especially recently.
But he would enjoy the quiet when he could get it.
He signed his name at the bottom of another document, the ink dark and decisive, then set the paper aside.
