The first sign of the Scribes did not arrive as sound or image.
It arrived as interruption.
Devansh felt it while tracing one of the inner routes he could no longer fully map. A subtle disruption moved through his awareness, not originating within Vayukshi, but pressing faintly against its outer structures.
A difference in pressure.
A misalignment of expectation.
He stopped.
Listened.
The city's response came slower than it once would have.
Not wrong.
Delayed.
He turned back toward the inner terraces where Ira and Meera were speaking.
He found them just as Meera finished her thought.
"I think it's a decision that never learned how to end."
The city's hum altered faintly.
Devansh's gaze lifted.
"There is external contact," he said.
Ira stood immediately. "The Scribes?"
"Yes."
Rehaan emerged from one of the side passages, expression already dark. "They felt it too."
"What kind of contact?" Ira asked.
"Indirect," Devansh replied. "They are no longer listening from distance. They are testing the surrounding structures."
The air shifted.
Not dramatically.
But with the unmistakable sensation of something aligning beyond sight.
Ira felt it in her shoulders, a faint tightening as though the space around her had narrowed.
"They're trying to understand what kind of change this is," she said.
Rehaan's mouth curved without humor. "They're trying to see whether it can be contained."
Meera's fingers closed around the edge of the step. "Contained how?"
Devansh did not soften his answer. "By removing its variables."
Ira felt the city's deeper layers respond faintly.
Not defensively.
Curiously.
"They won't just come for me," she said quietly.
"No," Rehaan agreed. "They'll come for what you're turning this place into."
Silence followed.
Then Ira straightened.
"We don't hide," she said. "We don't rush. And we don't let them define what this is."
Devansh studied her.
"You are aware," he said, "that they will escalate."
"Yes."
"And that escalation will carry costs."
She met his gaze. "It already does."
The city's hum deepened, uneven and alive.
And far beyond its hidden edges, systems designed to categorize anomalies began recalibrating toward something they had never had to name before.
Not an event.
Not a breach.
A developing structure.