EMMA
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not the peaceful kind that had once wrapped Lune Noire like a heavy blanket, but something brittle—like a held breath stretched too long. When I stepped out of Gabriel’s wing and into the main corridor, the air itself felt aware of me. Watching.
They knew.
I didn’t know how, not exactly. No announcement had been made. No alarms sounded. But packs—wolves, my mind corrected bitterly—didn’t need announcements. Truth moved through them differently. Faster. Quieter. Like scent on the wind.
I felt it in the way voices dipped when I passed. In how laughter died mid-note. In the way boots paused, then resumed, deliberately casual. Every man I saw pretended not to look at me, and somehow that was worse than staring.
They knew I had seen him.
I
