Beatrice POV
I turned the slate toward him and activated the divided overlay.
Three signatures pulsed softly against the screen.
His jaw tightened.
"That's not possible."
"It is."
Silence stretched between us.
Not disbelief.
Calculation.
"If this is real," he said slowly, "then everything Catherine believes about necessity…"
"is inherited," I finished.
"And everything Aurora believes about restraint," he added, "was designed to fail."
"Yes."
The weight of that settled like gravity shifting direction.
A new thought formed, sharp and unwelcome.
"If this becomes public," Marcus said carefully, "it won't stabilize anything."
"I know."
"It will fracture what's left."
"Yes."
He studied me.
"You're still going to use it."
Not a question.
A recognition.
"Memory has already been weaponized," I said. "Just not by us."
I thought of the lullaby again.
Three notes.
Three anchors.
Three futures.
The system had survived because we were divided.
