Lincoln's POV:
The world didn’t end the calm.
It approached it.
That difference still mattered the most.
I realized it sometime after noon, when the light had shifted just enough to cast longer shadows across the terrace. The others had drifted into their own rhythms—conversations breaking and reforming, movement without consequences, laughter that ain't awkward.
The Forge remained still.
I was helping Ayaana replant one of the terrace planters that had fallen apart when I felt it—not a threat, not a pull through time, but a change in pulse. The kind that only happens when the world takes a breath and prepares to speak.
I straightened my posture slowly.
Ayaana noticed it immediately.
“What is it? ” she asked—not alarmed, just attentive.
“Someone’s coming,” I said.
“Is it hostile
