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Rhyven immediately steps beside him. "What." Cassian looks pale. "I can feel it from here."

"Feel what?"

"The edge."

Nyra looks toward the ground. "There is an edge?"

Cassian nods. "Like something cut her out." Gods.

He doesn't enter. Professor Vayne doesn't ask him to.

Good. Judgment. Not obedience. Apparently we're all learning.

By early afternoon, Cassian has a role. Officially.

The Council assigns two siren specialists to begin examining disappearance sites alongside him.

He complains immediately. "They stole my idea."

Nyra looks at him. "They're using your discovery."

"Without naming it after me."

"Would you like us to call it the Cassian Gap?"

He considers. "Actually—"

"No."

We return to the Archive. And that's when I see it.

A page beneath Nyra's elbow. Old. Copied from the sealed reports. At the top: FIRST RECORDED DISAPPEARANCE. Below it— FIRST OPEN ASSAULT Forty-three days. I stop. We've been so focused on the two-day pattern I almost forgot.

"Nyra." She follows my gaze. Her expression changes. Oh. She hasn't forgotten. Of course she hasn't.

"What day are we?" Cassian asks.

Nyra doesn't answer immediately. She reaches for the current timeline. Jonas. Saturday. Then counts.

"Eleven." The room goes quiet.

Rhyven looks toward her. "Eleve since Jonas?"

"Yes."

Cassian glances toward the old report. "So..."

He does the math. "Thirty-two left."

Nyra's head lifts immediately. "No." The word is sharp.

Cassian pauses. "No?"

"Thirty-two until the date history recorded the first attack." She looks around the table. "That is not the same thing." There. Important.

Professor Vayne nods slowly. "Explain."

Nyra pulls both timelines together. "Forty-three days is one historical sequence. One. We don't know whether the Hollowborn follow cycles. Schedules. Rituals. Or nothing at all." She points toward the current disappearances. "And we're already ahead."