Theo stood when he saw Tessa.
His helper had moved the chair into a recess beside the farther receiving point, out of the stream of arrivals and close enough to the liaison that he could hear the main convoy entries being passed onward. His working sheet lay folded on his knee. He had obeyed his own limit and stopped answering public questions. He was waiting for his brother to come back and be told that he had stopped.
Tessa saw the expectation before she reached him.
She asked the helper to keep the next arrivals moving. Then she stopped close enough that Theo would not have to search her face across a crowd.
“Kellan reached us,” she said. “He helped get the children out. A beam fell at the last crossing and struck him. We got him free and treated him, but his injuries were too severe. He died before we could bring him farther.”
Theo stared at her.
Behind her, Eli and Bram waited with the board. They had stopped before entering the recess so the covered shape would not become the way Theo learned what had happened. Now Eli could see the moment Theo recognized it anyway. His face lost its expression. He took a breath that seemed to catch beneath his ribs.
