The High Steward watched the readout with the interest of a man observing an experiment.
“You’re learning,” Mac said quietly, not to the High Steward, but to Reynolds.
Reynolds’ eyes snapped toward him, wide and frantic and human beneath everything else. Mac didn’t soothe. He steadied. “Look at me,” Mac said, voice calm and low. “Not the lights. Not the ceiling. Me.”
Reynolds’ gaze fought, wavered, then locked. His breathing stuttered, then slowed in small increments.
Melvin spoke from the other side, steady as a metronome. “Match us. In through the nose. Out slow.”
Reynolds tried. Failed. Tried again. Succeeded on the third breath. Mac felt his own breath fall into that rhythm deliberately. Reynolds’ body took cues from structure, and Mac refused to let that structure be fear.
The High Steward’s gaze never left the scene. “You are both involved,” he said, as if noting a fact on a report. “Not as origin. As influence.”
Mac didn’t respond.
Reynolds’ jaw began to flex in tiny, wrong motions. The muscles in his neck rippled under skin like something beneath it was practicing.
The straps creaked once, quietly, but enough to make Reynolds’ eyes flare with shame. Mac reached out and placed his hand overReynolds’ forearm. Not gripping. Not pinning. Just contact, firm and steady. Reynolds flinched at first, then held still as if his body recognized the difference between restraint and anchor. Melvin’s voice remained calm. “Stay with me. Don’t fight it. Just breathe.”
Reynolds’ eyes squeezed shut. His brow furrowed with effort.
Mac watched his face, looking for the moment fear turned into something else. It came as a subtle sharpening, Reynolds’ lips pulling back slightly, teeth showing more than they should, not in a snarl but in an involuntary baring. His shoulders tightened against the straps, his fingers curling hard enough to blanch his knuckles.
The woman took a step closer.
Mac didn’t block her, but his posture shifted, wolf and officer aligning into one quiet refusal.
“Not yet,” Mac said.
The woman’s eyes slid to his, unimpressed. “You presume to direct the Stewardry?”
The word landed like stone.
Mac held her gaze. “I’m directing the room,” he said. “He’s still human enough to be reached. Don’t turn this into a demonstration.”
The High Steward lifted one hand, an almost lazy motion, and the woman stopped.
“Continue,” the High Steward told Mac.
Mac swallowed his anger. Anger was noise. Noise would cost Reynolds. Mac leaned closer to Reynolds and spoke low. “You’re not being overtaken,” he said. “Something’s happening to you. But you’re still you.”
Reynolds opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. Sweat ran down his temple. His mouth moved as if forming words, then stopped when hisjaw twitched again. Melvin’s hand came up, not to grab, not to control, but to touch Reynolds’ shoulder lightly through the cut sleeve. A point of contact. Reynolds’ body responded, not surrendering but settling, as if the touch gave his nervous system a map.
The High Steward’s voice cut in again. “Describe the entity.”
Mac kept his eyes on Reynolds. “Low profile. Fast. Controlled. Hayes reported it struck once, then withdrew.”
The woman turned her attention to Melvin. “You engaged?”
“No,” Melvin said calmly. “It withdrew.”
The younger figure’s pen moved quickly.
“And you, advanced?” the High Steward said to Melvin without turning.
Melvin’s posture didn’t change. “I stepped into its line. It assessed me. It chose not to press.”
“Why?” the High Steward asked.
