"Must've been-" Not today. Yesterday? Or before? Vax hadn't seen Vex, but she'd called him over the telephones and told him to come into the shop to look at the new swimming garments. Something about a black pair that would suit him, and that they should have a party by the pool over summer, maybe swimming lessons if anyone still didn't know how, and how there were tiny floating pouches of a babe's size, and did he remember when they had starting learning to swim, and when should they start Elaina? It had been wholly mundane stuff, nothing unusual about it. "Yesterday. You have seen her since?"

He turned, too, forgetting lunch entirely to get headed hastily back in the direction of his room.