A month passed.
It was a strange, tense, and unnervingly domestic month. The world outside our penthouse windows in Avalon hummed along, utterly ignorant of the two-year clock Alyssara had set, a cosmic deadline ticking away in the quiet rooms of our home. We existed in a bubble of borrowed time, each sunrise a small, defiant victory.
This morning was a perfect portrait of that contradiction. Sunlight, crisp and golden with the first real bite of autumn, streamed through the floor-to-ceiling glass, illuminating the controlled chaos of Stella's latest project. Schematics and half-assembled prototypes had colonized the living room floor, a testament to a mind that never stopped building. Stella, now a whirlwind of thirteen years and formidable intellect, was on her stomach, arguing passionately with Rachel over the optimal gear ratios for a kinetic driver.
