Jiang's human voice said Aylin's name from inside the Bellmother.
"Aylin, wait," the thorn whispered.
Water blurred the words. It could not blur the throat that had made them.
Jiang remembered how that voice had felt inside his chest, lower when he woke, thin after running, too quick when he lied about being fine. He remembered owning lips instead of a beak and a tongue that could shape Aylin's name without turning it into an emperor call.
For one breath, his current body became the thing between him and the sound.
The black-green thorn flexed under the scar.
"Aylin, wait," it said again.
Same breath. Same fear. Same mistake in the second word.
Aylin looked at the penguin beside her, not the glass.
She had heard that voice in Wake Court when a stolen-name vessel wore Jiang's former mouth. Her hand moved toward him and stopped before touch became another decision made for his body.
"I heard it last time," she said. "It was not you then."
