The silence lasted exactly three seconds.
Then reality broke.
Not shattered.
Shifted.
The air between Liam and the First Witness folded inward like paper.
The mansion groaned.
Every servant cried out at once.
Not from pain.
Recognition.
Denise felt it too.
A pressure against her thoughts.
A sensation that something vast was trying to fit inside a space far too small to contain it.
The First Witness smiled.
Not pleasantly.
Knowingly.
“You still wear the smaller shape.”
Liam didn’t answer.
Outside, the sky had changed.
The sun remained overhead.
Yet the light felt wrong.
Muted.
As though the world itself were refusing to look directly at what was happening.
The Witness took another step.
The boundary should have stopped it.
Denise knew that instinctively.
Something i
