Draven's POV
Nobody speaks for the three seconds it takes to process what Cora just said.
Then I am moving. Not toward the door, toward Arwen, which is the instinct that arrives before the tactical one and which I do not stop to analyze. I put myself between her and the staircase in the specific way of someone whose body has decided on a priority before the mind has finished its assessment.
Cole has gone very still. The genuine emotion of thirty seconds ago has not disappeared but it has been overtaken by the same alertness that every supernatural in a room defaults to when a new variable announces itself.
Cora has not moved at all. She sits in her chair with her hands folded and her expression carrying the specific quality of someone who registered the presence above eleven minutes ag
