"You didn't sleep," I said.
He set the tray down on the small desk. Oatmeal, blueberries, coffee. The same breakfast he'd been bringing me every morning since he'd set up the bed in Stone's room. "I slept enough."
"Neal."
"Eat your breakfast, Lumi."
I didn't touch the spoon. Just watched him as he checked Stone's monitors, his back to me, shoulders tight beneath his white coat.
Stone was watching too. He'd been calmer since yesterday. Still not peaceful, exactly. But the constant pacing had stopped. He lay near the wall now, his golden eyes tracking Neal's movements with something that might have been curiosity instead of hostility.
I stood and crossed to where Neal was pretending to study a readout.
"Hey." I touched his arm. Felt him tense, then deliberately relax. "Talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"You're a terrible liar. It's one of the things I like about you."
That got a reaction—a small huff that might have been a laugh in better circumstances. He turned to face me, and up close the exhaustion was even more obvious. Whatever had kept him up all night, it wasn't good.
"I found something," he said quietly. "In Rae's archives."
My stomach dropped. "What kind of something?"
Neal glanced at Stone, then at the door. Calculating who might overhear, what might get back to the wrong people.
"Not here," he said. "Can you meet me in my office in an hour?"
"Neal, you're scaring me."
"I know." He reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture was tender, almost absent-minded, like he'd forgotten to be careful about touching me. "I'm scared too."
Neal's office was small and cluttered with the organized chaos of someone who knew exactly where everything was despite appearances. Medical journals stacked on every surface. A half-empty coffee mug that had been there for days. Chartsand printouts pinned to a corkboard, covered in his precise handwriting.
But today, his desk was different. Cleared of its usual clutter. Covered instead with folders and printouts arranged in careful rows, like evidence at a crime scene.
He closed the door behind us. The click of the latch sounded too loud.
"I started with Rae's notes," Neal began. He moved to the desk but didn't sit—just stood there, looking down at the papers like they might bite him. "Her early work. The severed-bond healing protocols from after the council transition."
"Why?"
"Because I'm trying to understand why your presence helps Stone sometimes and not others." He picked up one of the folders, turned it over in his hands without opening it. "Why the gray one responded to Cal but the others haven't. What makes the difference between a feral who can recover and one who can't."
I moved closer, looking at the papers spread across the desk. Medical terminology I didn't fully understand. Dates going back years.
"I wasn't looking for history," Neal continued. "I was looking for mechanics. How bond damage presents. What recovery typically looks like. What should be possible, based on Rae's documented cases."
"And?"
"And I found a gap."
He set down the folder and picked up a different one. This one was older—the paper yellowed at the edges, the type slightly faded.
"The ferals in the east wing. Stone. The gray one. The others." Neal's voice was careful now. Measured. The voice he used when he was building toward something he didn't want to say. "Basedon physical development, dental analysis, bone density scans—standard aging protocols—they're between twenty-five and twenty-seven years old."
I did the math automatically. Twenty-five to twenty-seven. Which meant they would have been student age when—
