The air in the mill didn't just turn cold; it ceased to be air. It became a pressurized medium of terror, thick with the smell of scorched ozone and the sharp, floral scent of the Bio-Sync’s perfume—a scent I had designed in a boardroom five years ago to smell like "unreachable grace."
Ethan stood between me and the digital mirror, his body a rigid line of perfected violence. The white light pouring from his temple was so bright it cast long, skeletal shadows of the looms against the adobe walls. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe. The man who had played a lopsided G on a battered violin was gone, replaced by a piece of hardware executing a hard-coded command.
"Ethan, look at me," I whispered, my voice cracking as I backed away, the weight of Florence on my shoulders feeling like a leade
