The world sharpened in a way that was almost painful, like pupils adjusting to light after a long time in darkness, except it wasn't light she was adjusting to. It was reality at a different resolution, a higher frequency she'd been deaf to her entire life. The symbols on the wallpaper stopped being decoration and started being language she could almost read, the symbols pulling at her attention with magnetic insistence. The silver charms above the windows stopped bending light and started making sense of it, creating patterns she could suddenly parse. The vague unease she'd carried for years around certain buildings and certain public figures clarified into something specific. Recognition. Her blood had been responding to them for her entire adult life without her having the vocabulary fo
