No footprint, or sleeve, or print.
But the door?
It moved.
Four millimetres. A shift you’d never see unless you knew where to look. Unless you were watching the door, not the feed. It opens just wide enough to accept the note. Then closes again—soft. Controlled.
I sit back.
Something cold settles behind my ribs.
Because it means someone’s watching me now. Close enough to know the angles. The dead zones. The sound thresholds.
I rerouted the storage array. Funnel the feeds to an encrypted sandbox I never connect to the grid. I leave the main system active—let the intruder keep thinking they have the upper hand.
But now I’m watching them.
And whoever they are?
They’re inside my world.
Which means they know her.
Or worse—knew her first.
I stand and cross to the front door.
Kneel.
Check the base of the frame. The weather strip’s slightly misaligned. A tool mark—not from me. A slim, precise puncture in the insulation, small enough to fit a lock pick. New.
I log it.
Then, I open the utility panel under the sink and remove a metal case the size of a shoebox.
Inside: backups.
Photos. Video files. Cache drives I pulled from Raven’s devices years before we ever met.
I’ve kept everything.
I told myself it was for protection.
But now I dig for something else.
I pull the drive labelledRAVEN – ACADEMY ARCHIVEand slot it into the old reader.
The folders open.
One’s time stamped with her senior year.
Another from two years before that.
And there—in the second set—is something I didn’t tag.
A folder called“ALTAR.”
My stomach tightens.
