Talia set her signed correction on the committee table before anyone could ask whether she had changed her mind. Runa had left a chair with her name on it, between the translators and the workers’ delegate. The seat was neither beside Edvard nor behind him. It belonged to the person whose work was about to be questioned.
Lukas caught her eye. His repaired blue cuff showed beneath the jacket he had borrowed for the hearing. He pushed a cup of water her way, then looked at the documents instead of at her. The kindness gave her something ordinary to do with her hands.
Across the room Edvard stood with Signe. They were speaking quietly, without photographers. Signe had her own marked copy of the health annex. Talia could not hear their words and refused the temptation to imagine them.
The trade minister opened by calling the discrepancy a matter of…
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