Vrenn Myrvalis read intelligence the way other people read weather — constantly, passively, with the baseline assumption that conditions could change at any moment and the person who noticed first survived.
His morning routine was invariant. Wake at the fourth bell — not by choice but by biology; Kobolds slept in four-hour cycles and Vrenn's circadian rhythm had been calibrated to operational requirements since childhood. Wash. Dress — dark grey, always dark grey, because dark grey was the color of things that didn't want to be noticed and Vrenn had built an entire career on not being noticed. Eat — nuts, dried fruit, water, the portable nutrition that field operatives consumed because habit, once embedded, was more efficient than preference.
Then: the briefing folio.
