The mountain was quiet again. Too quiet.
Mist crawled lazily across the glowing lagoon, curling around the rocks like silver smoke. The Lunareens' laughter echoed faintly from the water—soft, melodic, and just a little too perfect. Isabella sat on a patch of moss near the edge, Glimora cradled against her chest, her knees drawn up, chin resting on top of them.
She had been silent for hours.
Not the dramatic kind of silence where you hope someone will ask what's wrong—no. This was the heavy, empty kind that sits in your chest like a rock.
Bubu hovered a few feet away, its glowing blue screen dimmed to a quiet pulse. Even the system seemed to have learned that now wasn't the time to talk.
If Isabella were being honest—really honest—it made no sense to keep blaming Bubu for what had happened. The system didn't make her say those awful things to Cyrus. It didn't make her run. It didn't make her this mess of anger and guilt and fear pretending to be a person.
