The air in the room felt like it had turned to steel, every breath sharp, every heartbeat hammering against ribs like a drum of war. The fourth figure, fully revealed now, stepped forward deliberately, their presence commanding and familiar in a way that twisted my stomach into knots I didn’t know existed. Every instinct screamed danger, every calculation I had relied on for years felt obsolete, fragile, meaningless. Adrian’s grip on my hand was iron, steadying me, grounding me, and yet even he didn’t speak, his gray eyes flicking between the intruders and me, razor-focused, calculating, lethal.
“You think you’ve controlled everything,” the fourth figure said, voice low, precise, each word deliberate, “but you’ve merely danced in a circle someone else designed. And tonight, tonight you ei
