The sky above Arden Gate bled light without color. The fourth shadow had entered the fissure, its exhale thick with time itself—unwritten, raw, dangerous. The square buckled under its weight. Loops shattered into crooked fragments. One moment Maren was scolding Kito, the next she was silent in mid-breath, the next she was years older, the next she was gone. The baker laughed and sobbed in the same second, over and over.
Lio dropped to one knee. Ink bled from his arms and hissed where it touched the cobbles. The door inside him creaked. He was losing the fight.
Then a thread touched him.
It wasn't the cold iron of Lyralei, or the rough edge of Reed's flicker. It was something softer, deeper, a voice that carried the weight of forgotten rooms and old mirrors.
Lio.
He gasped, snapping his head up. "Shia?"
