Four hours and eleven minutes.
That's what I had left when Natalia finally went to her own room, and I lay there in the dark listening to Maki purr against my ribs and thinking about how a person can build an entire empire out of favors and still not be able to buy an extra hour of sleep.
I didn't sleep. My body didn't need it anymore. That's one of the things nobody warns you about when a cosmic intelligence rewires your architecture like a landlord installing better plumbing. Mysticism used to make sleep optional. Now it makes sleep sort of decorative. I lay there with my eyes open and mapped the house by feel.
Sixteen people. Eleven asleep. Jacob face down on a datapad in the common room, heart rate slow, brain still humming like a fridge. Raphael awake and punching something in the basement because that's how he prays. Isabelle awake and reading, because Isabelle doesn't sleep so much as recharge in a chair like an expensive appliance. Soomin awake in the garden, drawing.
