Morning returned without ceremony. The glass of the tower lightened by slow degrees, the dark behind it peeling away until the city below softened from charcoal to gray, then from gray into faint color.
The light came politely, as if it had been waiting for permission to enter. It found the conference room already awake.
The long oval table stood clean and waiting, its smooth surface reflecting the pale climb of dawn. Ceiling projectors slept in their housings like obedient hounds at rest.
Doors opened without a rush, just the quiet scuff of polished shoes and the small, dry weather of coats shrugging off a trace of dawn chill.
The same people from last night took the same seats, not because name cards told them to, but because habits do when they are honest.
Veyra was there before the first kettle hissed. She stood at the far end of the room beside the great wall of glass, hands folded easily behind her back, watching the campus roofs wake in sequence.
