The silence wasn't passive anymore.
It had weight now—like air holding its breath, like the pause before thunder, not because it feared the storm but because it recognized it was already inside one.
When she returned to her hideout, slipping through the rear service path she always used, her boots barely made a sound against the old steel grating, and she didn't check the outer seals.
There was no need.
If someone had gotten through once, they could do it again—and she knew now that whoever it was hadn't come to break her defenses only to acknowledge they understood them.
The air inside was still.
Not heavy. Not sharp. Just… still.
And at the center of that stillness, resting neatly on the table where she always set her gear—was a note.
Plain. Folded once. No symbol. There is no trap aura—just paper.
She approached slowly, already sure there wouldn't be any danger in touching it but still letting her instincts guide the pace.
