Rafaela absentmindedly patted Brendan's hand when he paused by her desk after returning.
"Avery said he hasn't been receiving all of our replies, only a few of them," Brendan told her.
She was busy writing, and it took her a moment to process, but when it did, she looked up. "Does that mean we've been missing some of his messages, or that not all of ours are reaching him?"
"I'm not sure," he replied a bit grimly. "But he seems well, even though he denies being ready to come home."
Rafaela, the King, gave her husband, the hereditary King, a long look before replying. "Of course he's not ready to quit, he's still just getting started?"
"But it's been years, and he's already a licensed technician," Brendan protested.
Rafaela huffed a deeper sigh, and showed a bit of her weariness to Brendan, as she told him, "That just means he made it past the outermost obstacles. You said that you understood that this might take decades."
