"No."
Kane's voice cut through dead air.
The dream wearing Cyrus's face tilted its head, confusion flickering across borrowed features.
"This isn't real." Kane's hands clenched into fists, nine tails blazing silver. "None of this is real."
"Kane—"
"Don't." He stumbled backward, away from the thing pretending concern. "You're not him."
The world shuddered.
Colors bled sideways; the sky dripped into the ocean like wet paint. The frozen wave collapsed into ash, and the beach beneath Kane's feet rippled like disturbed water.
Kane squeezed his eyes shut.
Focused on the bond thrumming faint beneath his ribs—that connection to the real Cyrus, wherever he was.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake—
The horizon bent.
Kane's eyes snapped open.
The world folded over itself, sky touching sand in impossible geometry.
The beach stretched vertically, twisting into corridors that defied physics—glass walls reflecting fractured sunlight, floors made of compacted sand that crunched beneath his feet.
