Yet Dylan Brooks paid no attention to the mockery at all.
The sneers, the laughter, the thinly veiled contempt drifting through the courtyard—none of it registered on his face. To him, their provocation felt no different from ants screaming about how they were going to trip an elephant. Loud, frantic, self-important, and ultimately meaningless.
And when ants shouted at an elephant, did the elephant ever bother to respond?
Of course not.
“Three days,” Dylan said calmly, his voice neither raised nor hurried, cutting cleanly through the noise. “In three days, everything will be clear.”
As he spoke, his fingers brushed gently over the back of Sophie Walker’s hand. The touch was light, almost casual, yet it carried a steady warmth that anchored her amid the swirling hostility around them.
