GIDEON
I woke up at two in the morning to heat.
Not external heat. Not the building, not the night – the bond. Specifically, the bond in the register it took when Isla was asleep.
I’d learned the difference over the past week.
Her waking presence was a steady warmth – directional, like a compass, pointing with quiet insistence in whatever part of the building she occupied.
Her sleeping presence was quieter. Softer. The quality of someone who had let their guard down completely and didn’t know they were broadcasting.
This was neither of those things.
I lay still for a moment and catalogued it with the same precision I applied to everything; threat assessment before emotional reaction, always, that was the discipline.
Not fear. Not distress. Not the nightmare quality I had learned
