[Realm: Álfheimr]
[Location: The Deathless Fortress]
There were moments—quiet ones, usually uninvited—when a person's thoughts slipped backward and began circling those small, dangerous questions people liked to pretend they didn't dwell on.
What if?
There was no crime in it. No moral failing in wondering how different things might have been if one choice had bent a fraction to the left, or if hesitation had won instead of resolve. People pretended certainty was strength, but imagination was merely persistence. To wonder was to survive long enough to reflect.
And Gretchen had survived long enough to reflect far more than she would have liked.
