Elara reached the safe house at nineteen-forty with a magistrate folder tucked under one arm and rain drying on the shoulders of her coat.
She set the folder on the kitchen table without opening it.
That told Caleb more than the seal on the cover.
The mother had left a plate for her under a cloth. Elara lifted the corner, saw the food, and let the cloth fall back into place. She was running on command-room nerves, not appetite. Caleb recognized the look because she wore it after bad briefings, bad votes, and every conversation where a man with a clean collar tried to turn dead people into paperwork.
She pulled out the chair across from him, and her eyes went straight to the sling. "Show me."
"Splint covers it."
"Then show me where."
Caleb put two fingers against the outside of the splint, halfway between wrist and elbow. The movement pulled a thin wire of pain up to his shoulder. He kept his face still badly enough that Elara noticed.
"How long?"
"Six weeks."
