The weeks before had a specific texture.
Not anxious exactly. More like the particular quality of sustained attention — the way you felt when something significant was approaching and your whole system had oriented toward it without being asked to.
He had the folder.
Of course he had the folder.
Hospital bag packed at thirty-two weeks. The medical documents organized in the order Dr. Yuen's team would need them. The specialist at Meridian briefed and scheduled. Caelan's number and Juno's number and Adrian's number listed in the specific sequence that reflected the order of contact if Seren couldn't make the calls himself.
He had thought about every variable.
He had planned for every contingency he could identify.
He had also understood, with the specific humility of someone who had been planning things for twenty-three years, that planning and readiness were different and that the second one would arrive when it arrived regardless of the first.
The days were quiet.
