The safe house remained quiet through the night, but it was not peaceful silence. It was the kind that settled over battlefields after the gunfire stopped, when the world had not yet decided whether it was mourning or recovering. Outside, Garden Metro glistened beneath the fading rain, its streets reflecting fractured neon and police lights in long trembling streaks. Somewhere in the city, arrests were being made. Somewhere else, people were burning documents, abandoning safe houses, turning on allies before allies could turn on them first. Entire networks were collapsing under the weight of exposure and fear. Inside the room, however, time moved differently. Elara sat beside him with one knee drawn slightly toward her chest, exhaustion pressed into every part of her body. The adrenaline that had carried her through the opera house, through the blood and chaos and terror, had begun to drain away, leaving behind something heavier. Not weakness. Not regret. Something closer to reali
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