The city did not know it was holding its breath.
But Seraphina did.
She felt it in the way footsteps paused when she passed, in the way conversations softened not stopped, just… adjusted. As though people were afraid their words might drift too close to her and be overheard by something that wasn’t human.
Something listening.
She moved through the lower east corridor alone, cloak drawn tight, the stone beneath her boots familiar enough to be unsettling. These halls had once been neutral ground.
Now they were weighted.
Every corner remembered.
She stopped before the sealed door.
Not locked.
Never locked.
That had always been the insult.
“You’re early,” Damien said from behind her.
She didn’t turn. “ I wasn’t summoned.”
“No,” he agreed. “You weren’t.”
That made this worse.
She
