I try to ignore the voice.
I sit alone in the war room with the orb pulsing faintly on the table in front of me and I force myself to breathe slowly, because if I focus on the rhythm of my lungs and the solid feel of the chair beneath me then maybe the echo inside my head will fade into nothing.
Layla does not come forward.
She stirs, restless and unsettled, pacing along the edges of my mind like something wounded, and every time I try to reach for her she retreats further back as if she is avoiding something I cannot see.
The voice does not speak.
It waits.
That waiting is worse.
The door opens and Axel and Atticus step inside together, their presence filling the room with warmth and grounding in a way that I did not realize I needed, and the moment they cross the threshold the air
