the veil that speaks by breathing
that new Joelle girl’s veil’s billowing in and out with her breath, Gately sees, just like it also was during the last speaker’s description of the statue’s orgasm
Context
Joelle, hidden behind the veil, transmits her private Identification without a word: the cloth billows with her breath at exactly the passages that touch her, and Gately reads the involuntary motion the way one reads a face. Concealment turns out to be a channel too — the veil doesn't stop communication, it just reroutes it into the one signal she can't suppress.