Chapter 384: The Second Line
Day 31 opened the way Day 30 had — pool at ninety-five percent, the overnight ceiling holding for the fourth morning running.
One day to the hearing now, if Soren's count still held. Kai wrote the number in his father's book before he did anything else. Ninety-five percent. One day. He looked at the second line for a moment, the way he'd started looking at everything lately, then closed the book.
The camp had stopped needing instructions for mornings like this. Fires got built. Water got hauled. Nobody waited to be told what kind of day it was anymore. They had all become the kind of people who already knew.
Pell found it first, the way she found most things — by checking somewhere nobody had asked her to check.
She was on her usual round of the six markers, timing cord looped over one wrist, when she stopped at the fifth ring longer than the routine required. Kai caught the change in her posture from thirty feet off and crossed over.
"What is it?"
