The room feels smaller.
Not in space.
In certainty.
I move to the window, looking out into the yard where the iron stakes still stand in their careful lines. The night has settled fully now, shadows deep between the trees, the sealed circle barely visible beneath the dark.
Corin is not in sight.
Of course he isn’t.
He rarely remains where he can be easily observed when something is shifting.
Behind me, Sable speaks again. “It might be nothing.”
“It might.”
“You’re going to look into it anyway.”
“Yes.”
She stands, coming to my side. “Don’t go full terrifying demon king about it.”
“I am always a terrifying demon king.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I will be discreet.”
She snorts. “That’s new.”
“I am evolving.”
“That’s deeply unsettling.”
I glance at her, and despite the tension threading through my thoughts, something in me eases at the sight of her—steady, grounded, alive in a way that no longer feels precarious.
“I will handle it carefully,” I say.
“Good.”
“And you will tell me if you feel anything else.”
“I will.”
We stand there a moment longer, looking out into the quiet yard.
The peace is still there.
Real.
But now it has edges again.
Not sharp. Not immediate.
Just… present.
And I begin, quietly, to analyze.
