The silence lingered after Clara's words, stretched thin like a thread pulled too far but not yet snapped. No one rushed to fill it. Everyone was tired enough to let it breathe.
Noel lowered the device slowly, his fingers loosening around it as if the tension in his grip had finally found somewhere else to go. He took a breath, steady and unhurried, the kind you take when you already know what you're about to say and just need to accept it first.
"You're right," he said.
His voice was calm, almost plain, without the edge of urgency that had been hanging over him moments earlier.
"If I go alone, I get there faster," Noel continued, eyes lifting briefly toward the horizon before returning to the group. "I won't pretend otherwise."
No one interrupted him.
"But we lose everything else," he added. "The moment we split, we throw away the only advantage we've had so far."
He paused, letting the words settle, then nodded once, more to himself than to anyone else.
