“For me,” I said.
“For anyone,” he replied. “You just notice it more.”
I chewed, thinking. Cataloguing. He never denied the effect—only the intent. That distinction mattered. It let me believe this was mutual awareness rather than manipulation.
Which was dangerous.
I swallowed. “Flint probably would have made this awkward.”
“Yes,” Brewster said. “He would’ve insisted it meant something.”
“And you don’t think it does?”
“I think meaning is assigned,” he said. “Not inherent.”
I studied him over the rim of my coffee mug. “You always talk like you’re standing outside the moment.”
“I usually am.”
“And now?”
A pause. Just a hair longer than necessary.
“Now,” he said, “I’m choosing to stay in it.”
That knocked me off balance.
Not because of what he said—but because of what hedidn’tdo afterward.
He didn’t step closer. Didn’t soften his voice. Didn’t let the moment bloom.
He simply checked his watch.
“We’ll have movement by evening,” he added, back in operational mode. “Either from him. Or from someone who decided silence is too expensive.”
The spell broke.
I set the food aside, pulse still a half-step ahead of my thoughts.
“You do that,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Open a door just enough for someone to walk through—then close it before they realize they moved.”
His mouth curved slightly. Not a smile. Recognition.
“It’s effective,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed. “It is.” That was the problem.
As the light continued to fade and the silence reassembled itself around us—new, watchful, intentional—I couldn’t tell which of us was pacing whom anymore.
Only that the next move wouldn’t come from force. It would come from timing. Brewster, infuriatingly, had excellent timing.
Fortunately, I’d never mistaken waiting for doing nothing.
Chapter
