The waiting was worse than the pain.
Henrietta stood beneath the open sky, moonlight pressing against her senses like a hand she could not swat away. It seeped beneath her skin, coiled around her spine as if something inside her were being wound too far, too fast.
She did not move.
Not when her heartbeat deepened, stretching into something heavier than human rhythm.
Not when warmth spread along her bones, sharp and unfamiliar, like heat remembered rather than newly felt.
Breathe slow.
She focused on the ground beneath her boots. The packed earth. The faint scent of crushed grass. Solid things. Real things. Anchors.
"Don't brace," Gideon said quietly. His voice cut through the haze. "If you lock yourself in place, it'll tear through you instead."
Henrietta exhaled through clenched
