"Yes," he agreed. "But not by leaving fingerprints."
I narrowed my eyes. "Then how?"
"By resonance," he said. "The Abyss doesn't impose itself. It harmonizes."
The word sent a chill through me.
"Harmonizes with what?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he stepped closer to the display. His presence altered the room in subtle ways I was trying very hard not to notice. His aura—dark red threaded with black—shifted as he focused, and the gold flecks flared briefly.
"With minds," his voice was so close, it felt like a gentle breeze against my skin. "With expectation. With hunger."
I swallowed, forcing myself not to think of an alternative version of the meaning of his words. "That's not science."
"No," he agreed calmly. "It's a pattern."
I hated that he was right.
"Fine," I said. "Pattern it is. Help me translate this."
On a whim, I pulled up several of Nythor's ramblings from a list I had started making, overlaying them with the anomalydata. Streams of fragmented thought spilled across the display, meaningless at first glance.
Dravok watched me work in silence.
Minutes passed. Maybe more.
Then—
"There," I cried sharply. "That sequence repeats every time the background radiation spikes." Dravok leaned in. Too close. I was painfully aware of the heat of him, the way my skin responded before my brain could object.Focus, Nadine. "That's not environmental interference," I shook my head with my eyes still locked on the data. "And it's not random."
Dravok angled his head. "Then what is it?"
I exhaled. "It's Nythor. Not a warning, at least not intentionally. More like… leakage. A constraint he doesn't realize he's imposing."
He frowned. "Explain."
"His mind is fractured," I said. "But parts of it are still performing functions. Pattern recognition. Boundary setting. He's not telling youwhereto go; he's telling you wherenotto push too hard. When proximity spikes, the signal destabilizes."
Dravok's jaw tightened. "He never learned subtlety."
"He learned something," I shot back. "You just weren't listening for it this way."
Something flickered in his eyes. It wasn't anger. It was something sharper. Something deeper: Respect. The silence stretched between us, charged and precarious.
"You should rest," he suggested after a minute.
I laughed, sharp and humorless. "You kidnapped me, dragged me into a cosmic conspiracy, and now you want me to nap?"
"I want you functional."
I met his gaze, heart thudding. "Then stop underestimating me."
For a long moment, we stared at each other, the air between us humming like a live wire.
"Fine," he agreed at last. "Show me what else you see."
I lifted a hand between us, holding up two fingers. "A couple of things first." His brow arched. Of course it did. And of course, it looked sexy as hell. "Food and clothes. I need both."
