The knock was polite.
That was what unsettled Anna most.
Not the wards flaring. Not the pressure in her skull when the ley lines shifted. But the sound itself—measured, restrained, as if whoever stood beyond the shrine door understood the etiquette of intrusion.
Lexus was already on his feet.
The wound in his side had sealed into a thin, dark seam that pulsed when the world’s qi flowed too close. It did not bleed anymore. It listened.
Anna felt it when he moved—how the shadow inside him answered faster now, sharper, less patient.
“I’ll handle this,” he said.
“No,” she replied quietly. “We will.”
The door slid open without being touched.
Shen Qiyang stepped inside as though entering a colleague’s study rather than the refuge of two fugitives the heavens had marked for correction. H
