Chapter 115. Dawn’s Audit

The room held breath and the vessel did not. The bench had already slid tight beneath her, the null’s cool mouth laid across her sternum like a hand that refuses to be decorative, the copper pan steaming its small, stubborn cloud as if water believed it could out-argue grief by staying helpful. Aria counted between fingers because numbers keep panic from expecting applause. She felt for a pulse where truth lives first. Nothing answered. Nothing is not a sentence.

“Lior,” Jules said, voice level on purpose. “Map the door and the window. If a law tries to leave, I want to know it by the sound it makes.”

“Already in the latch,” Lior murmured, shimmer threading the jamb, then crossing the sill in a line so thin even pride would have to squint to admire it.

“Rina,” Cassandra said, “hand.” Rina put her palm to the vessel’s ankle, silver live along her radius, not performing, measuring. “Warm,” she whispered, “but falling.”

Aria bent so low her lips almost brushed t