Callie’s POV
I didn’t move forward immediately, even though my body had already begun that motion on more than one level, because there was a difference I now understood with uncomfortable clarity: it wasn’t the same to walk toward something as it was to enter it. And what unfolded before me—though it had no visible form, though there was no line drawn on the ground, no boundary I could point to with precision—was not a path I could walk without consequence, but a threshold that didn’t depend on geography…
but on recognition.
The figure in front of me didn’t move to stop me.
He didn’t make any gesture that could be interpreted as a threat.
But he didn’t step back either.
And that stillness held more authority than any explicit warning, as if his mere presence marked the exact point w
