“It changed,” I said, my voice quieter than before, not because I lacked strength, but because speaking felt like interrupting something that had already begun moving with a direction I could no longer control, and the moment the words left me, the awareness between us pulsed again, deeper, steadier, as though confirming what I had already begun to understand.
Kessler turned slightly toward me, his expression composed, but there was no mistaking the shift in him, because I could feel it as clearly as I felt my own pulse, the way his control had sharpened rather than fractured, the way his awareness had aligned itself with something that no longer resisted him.
“Yes,” he said, “It is not waiting anymore,” I said, forcing the realization into words as the pull beneath my ribs deepened into
