Loved her since she was six years old centuries ago.
And he’s watching her choose someone else. Again.
But he doesn’t reach. Doesn’t push. Just withdraws a little further, that patient ache settling deeper into his features.
I see all of it.
I don’t know how to fix it.
The Eds have multiplied.
They’re up to Darian’s chest now — a thick ring of small dark shapes, bobbing and clustering and apparently having the time of their lives.
“No,” Darian says. “No no no—”
More arrive. They float across the water from all directions, converging on him like he’s the most interesting thing they’ve encountered in centuries.
“What thefuck,” Torric says, staring.
“Language,” Aspen murmurs, but he’s still grinning.
“The shadows are swarming him and you’re worried about my language?”
The Eds pile higher. Shoulders now. Creeping toward his neck.
“I can’t— They won’t—Why is this happening—”
Carl tries to join the swarm from the left. Steve tries to intercept him. They collide, tangle, and crash into the water with a splash that sends ripples across the entire pool.
Patricia’s notebook is strobing now. Flickering so fast it’s practically a light show.
Bob observes the chaos with the expression of a general watching his troops descend into anarchy.
“Should we help him?” Kaia asks, but she’s laughing too hard to be serious.
“I don’t know how,” Finn admits. “This is unprecedented. Historic. I’m witnessing shadow history.”
“I hate you,” Darian says, muffled by Eds. “I hate all of you.”
“That’s fair,” Finn says cheerfully.
Torric uses the chaos.
He stands — water streaming off his massive frame — and stretches like he’s been in the pool for hours instead of twenty minutes.
“I think it’s time to get out.”
“What?” Kaia looks up at him. “Why?”
“Because we’ve been in here a while.” His eyes flick to me. To Finn. To the way we’re arranged around Kaia like planets around a sun. “And some of us probably want some privacy.”
“Privacy for what?”
Aspen chokes on nothing.
Finn goes very still.
Torric just grins — wide and knowing and completely unsubtle. “Figure it out, Kaia.”
