As I step inside, I hear her moving behind me. The soft rustle of fabric. The quiet clink of glass bottles being returned to the supply station.
She is not leaving.
The relief is so overwhelming it nearly buckles my knees.
I turn on the water, letting the warm spray wash away the volcanic oil. My skin is still radiating heat, the molten warmth pulsing beneath the surface, and I can feel the way my body has transformed. The stone-lock is gone. Completely. My muscles are loose, my joints fluid, and there is not a single calcified seam anywhere on my body.
She did this.
Tamsin did this.
And the magnitude of that realization threatens to shatter the carefully maintained control I've spent eight centuries perfecting.
I dry off quickly, wrapping the towel around my waist, and step back into the main room.
Tamsin is standing at the supply station, her back to me. She is wiping down the massage table, her movements efficient and methodical. Her shoulders are slightly hunched, and I can see the tension in the line of her spine.
And that is when I notice it.
The details.
The things I have been too distracted by my own stone-lock to fully process.
Her sneakers are sitting by the door, and from this angle, I can see the frayed seams where the rubber is cracking at the toe. The fabric is worn thin, the laces knotted in multiple places where they have broken and been retied.
Her wrists tremble slightly as she folds the towel, a micro-movement that suggests exhaustion so deep it is affecting her fine motor control.
Her shoulders are hunched forward, the posture of someone who has been carrying too much weight for too long.
And the smell.
That acrid, sour scent I noticed weeks ago—the scent of burnout, of exhaustion, of a body running on fumes—has only intensified.
She is not just tired.
She is being systematically drained.
My heightened senses, now fully unlocked and receptive, focus entirely on her. I can see the shadow under her eyes, the slight pallor of her skin, the way her hands move with the kind of efficiency that comes from years of pushing through exhaustion.
She is surviving on sheer willpower.
And I am furious.
At her.
At the system that has forced her into this position. At the low-paying daytime clinic that works her to the bone. At the landlords and the debt collectors and the entire economic structure that treats her like she is disposable.
She is not disposable.
She is the only person in eight centuries who has been able to touch me without triggering my defenses. She is the only person who has looked at my stone-locked body and refused to give up. She is the only person who has made me feel something other than cold, isolated control.
And she is running herself into the ground just to survive.
The realization hits me like a physical blow.
I have spent centuries hoarding wealth. I have built an empire. I have more resources than I could ever use in ten lifetimes.
And she is wearing shoes with cracked soles.
