The first northern territory visit happened three weeks after her appointment, on a cold January morning when the passes that Brennan had formally reopened were navigable but not comfortable.
She traveled with two wolves, both chosen for the same qualities she had specified, composure under uncertainty and the capacity to be present in a room without requiring direction. Thomas again, whose steadiness she had observed through the Ironmoor operation and whose particular quality of being exactly what a situation needed without needing the situation to acknowledge it made him useful for exactly this kind of work. And Hessa, who had agreed to join the Moonlit advisory structure as a liaison specifically for the Ironmoor relationship, whose knowledge of the northern territory's social geography was more current and specific than anything Vera could have assembled from outside.
