"Sophia, Sophia, SOPHIA!" Marcus's panicked voice carried down the mansion's corridors, growing more distressed with each repetition. "The patterns are wrong! Everything is wrong! Pattern disruption, pattern disruption!"
Sophia dropped her Italian textbook and ran toward the sound, her heart hammering with familiar dread. She'd been dreading this moment for weeks… Marcus had been holding himself together with superhuman effort, but the stress of constant change was finally overwhelming his carefully constructed coping mechanisms.
She found him in the main dining room, standing in the center of the space with his hands pressed over his ears, rocking back and forth while making a low keening sound. The formal dining table had been set for the family dinner Ethan insisted they share every e
