The screen lit. Two waveforms, hers and the one that had no business being there. Noah's signal sat deeper than last time. Dug in.
"It's settled further in." Aton kept his voice clinical. His eyes said something else.
Harper was half-reclined in the exam chair, ice pack on her throat, breathing steady now. She insisted on giving her own debrief, and I let her because taking that from her would've cost more than it saved.
She gave it stripped down. I clocked her doing it, skipping past whatever her body had felt, leaving only bone. Fire. A burning hall. A baby.
"He gave the child to a subordinate," she said. "Then turned around alone."
She paused.
"The memory broke through my wall. The attackers came at me. Then Noah's hand was on my throat." She swallowed once, carefully. "His eyes w
