The night before we left, Helena came to my rooms with a small kit of medicines and instructions I hadn't asked for but accepted without argument.
"These are for after work," she said. "Once you're back across the boundary. You'll take these immediately, regardless of how you feel. Especially if you feel fine — the working has a delayed onset on most of its physical effects, and feeling fine initially is not diagnostic of actually being fine."
"Understood."
"I'll be at the boundary. I'm not going inside — I know, I know — but I'll be at the boundary,y and you will come to me before you do anything else."
"Helena."
"Before anything else." She held my gaze.
"Sophia. I need you to agree to that."
"I agree."
She looked at me a moment longer, checking the quality of the agreement.
"On
