The east yard at midnight was empty and cold by nothing.
Soren crossed it to the pale patch, to Selah's seal, to the coordinate that had been pre-filled on a festival slot before any committee drafted the fight he'd won to stand on it.
He stood on it now.
He understood, standing there, every path had run through this square.
The grave, the fight, the reception, the custody clause, the room assigned with this exact sightline.
Somebody had been walking him to this coordinate since before he'd set foot in this world, and here he was.
"Okay," Soren said, to the dark. "Audience."
The dark answered.
◆◆◆◆
It didn't rush him.
It folded.
That was the word his mind reached for and kept.
The shadow across the yard folded inward, gathered, and did it with an analysis he'd been watching every single night for a year from under his own bed, the exact way Grimm's shadow moved when she shifted in her sleep, the exact way Yara's dark had arranged his corners all week.
