Elin took a small breath. Raizen saw it in her shoulders. He saw that she didn't enjoy saying this.
Then she said the last part.
"It's as if the Eon itself…"
Raizen leaned forward for the missing piece.
…But the missing piece never came.
Raizen's focus narrowed so hard he almost forgot he was balancing on a branch more than thirty meters up.
Elin said something… But Raizen couldn't hear it. Or read it on her lips.
A sound rose at the wrong moment - a scrape of chair legs, a murmur swelling into overlapping voices, the faint hum of the cube still sitting on the table, inactive now, and the echo off marble walls. It all blended together and blurred the final words.
Raizen caught nothing. Not even a syllable.
Elin stopped. She bowed, short and formal.
And then the room exploded.
