The sun comes through the window.
It reaches the foot of the bed first. Crosses the sheets. Finds my hand. The gold moves up my wrist, and I watch it travel the way I've watched it before, except this time I don't catalog the sensation. I let it sit.
I press my mouth to the back of her neck. She shifts. Her fingers find mine on her stomach and lace through them. She doesn't open her eyes.
"What time is it?" she asks.
"Early."
"How early?"
"The sun just hit the bed."
She pulls my arm tighter around her. "Then we have time."
We have time.
I stay there. The sunlight moves across the sheets. Her breathing slows again. The warmth of her skin against mine is still the thing I notice first, every time. The temperature difference I cataloged for weeks and didn't let myself follow to its conclusion.
A bird calls from the oak outside the window. Another answers it.
I close my eyes.
She's sittingcross-legged on the bed when I open my eyes. Her hair is loose. One hand resting on her stomach. She does that now. She doesn't seem to notice.
I cross the room. I kneel beside the bed. I put my hand where hers is. She lifts her fingers and lets mine take their place.
I press my mouth to her stomach once. Then I stand.
We dress. We walk out together.
Julian is already in the conference room. The patch is black against the skin at his temple. His tablet is open. He's been awake for less than ten minutes and the witness list is already on the screen.
"Lanthar's Fae visited thirty-seven witnesses overnight," he says without looking up. "Memory work. Each one now remembers a promotional stunt that went wrong. Clean recalls, no gaps. The first responders were the priority."
"How many names remain?"
"Eighty-four. The Fae are working in pairs, six teams, moving through the list by proximity. They'll hit another forty tonight."
"The cover story?"
"Holding. The stunt narrative is dominant in the press. The video of you is at nineteen million views, but the frame quality isstill working for us." He scrolls. "Three podcasters and a retired police captain are pushing back publicly. The witnesses who haven't been reached are talking to each other."
"Then we get to them. Tell Lanthar I need all six teams running around the clock until the list is clear."
Julian marks something on the tablet.
I leave him to it.
Elena is in the medical wing. The door is closed. Inside, she has the ultrasound image in a folder on her desk, face down. She's drawn notations on a separate sheet in her careful handwriting. Growth projections. Estimated timelines. Question marks beside half of them.
"I ordered reference texts," she says when I stop in the doorway. "Human obstetric manuals. It's the closest framework I have."
"And?"
"And nothing in them accounts for a mother whose heart is synchronized with her bondmate's or a gestation that started in a body that was technically dead." She turns in her chair. "I'm building this from the ground up. Seraphina is checking her with magic every twelve hours. So far, both babies are developing normally. Whatever normal means for us."
"Keep me informed."
