Atlas woke to the thin gray that came before the first watch.
The mattress still held the heat of four bodies, but the three women were already dressed and moving with the quiet economy of people who had finished something in the night.
Lara's hand was no longer on his chest. Eli's arm was gone from his waist. Clara sat at the workbench with the ledger open, ink drying on a short new entry.
He sat up. The residual clarity of the second naming was thinner than it had been when he fell asleep. Not gone—thinned, as if a thread had been cut somewhere outside the room.
Lara looked up from the blade she was oiling. "You slept."
"Deeper than I meant to." Atlas swung his legs over the side of the bed. The short blade at Lara's hip caught the early light the same way it had the night the Wizardess named the future in the alley.
