This was the part I'd been most afraid of — feeling her in the working, knowing what it was costing her, being present for it in a way I couldn't control or intervene in. What I felt was not what I'd feared. There was effort. There was the quality of something being spent rather than simply experienced. But there was also, unmistakably, will. Active, chosen, forward-facing will. The work was not happening for Giga. She was doing it.
The distinction mattered. I held onto it.
Aldric's voice changed pitch slightly — a shift that I recognized from our preparation sessions as the work's transition into its final stage.
"Fifteen minutes," he said, in a moment of directness that surfaced through the working noise. "Hold."
I held.
The working's final stage was different from the first.
The r
