The ceiling tiles didn't stay put. They drifted—a slow, nauseating slide to the left, then a sudden, jarring snap back to center. My eyes wouldn't track. They kept trying to focus on the static hanging in the air, the jagged, neon-bright remnants of the mansion’s collapse still clinging to my retinas like smoke.
The air in the medical wing was suffocating. It smelled of ozone, scorched copper, and the sickening, sterile scent of alchemical stasis. It was a vacuum of intent, a room designed to keep things quiet that refused to be silenced.
Clang.
Every muscle fiber fired off a spark of white-hot agony. That frantic, kinetic energy—a buzzing, high-frequency hum—was clawing at the back of my throat, demanding I tear the sheets, break the glass, run until my heart gave out. But my bones fel
