He didn't tell Elira in the morning.
He almost did — she found him already dressed when she woke up, sitting at the desk with a cup of tea that had gone cold an hour ago, and she looked at him the way she sometimes did when she was reading a situation instead of a person.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"I slept a little," he lied.
She accepted this without comment, which meant she didn't believe him and was filing it away. Elira always filed things away. He was starting to understand that the things she filed were the things she cared about most — the ones she was being careful with.
He didn't tell her because he had three fragments of broken text and a word he didn't understand yet and he wasn't going to hand her half a panic. He'd wait until he had something real.
That was the plan.
The plan lasted until 2AM the following night.
It happened at 2AM.
