The blue garden held for one more breath. I could feel the new weight of her power, a clean, steady hum of settled reality. Mid Radiant. Earned, not gifted.
Then my slate buzzed once against my hip, a discreet vibration no one else would notice. 'North: anomaly on your ring.'
I didn't let go of her. "It's fine," I said, and made it true. I drew a quiet shell of Lucent Harmony around the artifact in my pocket, and the sudden pressure spike from whatever it was trying to do flattened into nothing.
Rose's fingers tightened on my arm. "It tried to ring home?"
"Something like that," I said. "Not again."
We stepped out of the greenhouse and straight into Ouroboros ops. The room was steel, paper maps, and the handful of people I trusted to keep the world from breaking. Cecilia was already at the main table, stacking folders into neat, dangerous lanes.
