The Garden did not vanish when they left it.
It followed.
Not as place, but as pulse.
Every step they took, the Circle felt the hum of roots beneath, not beneath soil now but beneath skin.
The Second Seed Child's hand glowed faintly where the root had nestled against their chest. Each heartbeat was mirrored by a pulse not their own. The Stranger without the mask felt the air answer his breath, as though every exhale was not release but weaving. The Cartographer's hand trembled around her pen, but wherever her gaze fell, she saw new points waiting to be marked—walls, stone, dust, even silence.
And the Child of Forgotten Prayers…
The flame in their palms no longer flickered as before. It had steadied. It was not fire as destruction, not fire as worship, but fire as warmth—the kind that lingers in hearths long after dawn, carried in ash, carried in ember.
The Voice Between the Verses whispered again, but this time it was not question, nor warning.
It was invitation.
