Morning light cut through the dust in Silver Creek Manor like blades.
The place hadn't been lived in for years—not since the Purge—but someone had cleaned it. Swept the marble floors. Lit the old hearth with synth-logs that crackled like real wood. Even hung fresh linen on the four-poster bed where Luna now sat cross-legged, eyes closed, hands hovering over a floating sphere of liquid time.
Kai watched from the doorway, arms crossed, jaw tight.
She'd insisted on coming back here. "It's where it started," she'd said. "Where you first anchored me."
He remembered. Rain on the roof. Her fever spiking. Him pressing his palm to her chest and pulling—not healing, but tethering. Binding her unstable resonance to his own steady pulse. That was the birth of his "time anchor" ability: not a gift, but a father's desperate act.
Now, she didn't need him to stop her from burning out.
She needed him to keep up.
"You're holding back," Luna said without opening her eyes.
