No one touched the sleeve after that.
Not Kael. Not Ronan. Not Nyra.
It stayed on the table like something alive had briefly used it and left behind the shell.
Clean.
Perfect.
Wrong.
Nyra stood closest to it now, but she didn’t reach for it again. Something about it didn’t allow casual contact anymore. It wasn’t fear, it was recognition. Like the object had already finished speaking, and anything further would be interruption.
Kael shifted slightly behind them.
“So someone broke in,” he said.
Ronan didn’t answer immediately.
Nyra did.
“No,” she said quietly.
Kael frowned. “Then what?”
Nyra’s eyes stayed on the sleeve.
“They didn’t break in.”
A pause.
“They were already inside.”
That silenced the room in a different way.
Kael straightened.
“That’s not possible. The yard’s
