I felt it before I decided it.
The direction.
The place the pressure wanted to go.
Not outward.
Through Meera.
My breath shook.
"No," I said under my breath.
Devansh heard it. "Ira—"
"If it finishes aligning there," I said, "it won't need to breach again."
Rehaan's eyes widened. "You're saying it's using her as a reference point."
"Yes."
Meera's face had gone pale. "What does that mean?"
I looked at her.
Really looked.
And hated what the truth demanded.
"It means if it completes whatever it's doing," I said softly, "it won't need to design something new. It will have one."
Her lips parted. "Me?"
Tears burned behind my eyes.
"Yes."
The room felt smaller.
The air pressed closer.
The faint indentation in the wall deepened.
"Ira," Devansh said, low and urgent. "What are you thinking?"
I didn't answer him.
Because I was already doing it.
I turned inward.
Toward the place that had thinned when I altered the city.
Toward the space where my distance used to live.
I reached there.
And pulled.
Not outward.
Down.
Pain lanced through my chest, sharp enough that I gasped. My vision dimmed at the edges. My knees weakened.
But something shifted.
Inside me.
The heaviness surged—not wide, not diffused.
Focused.
For the first time, I wasn't listening.
I was placing.
The air around Meera trembled.
She cried out as the pressure redirected.
The indentation in the wall faltered.
The sense of something standing there… slid.
Not away.
Into me.
My breath tore out of my lungs.
The city's hum roared back, uneven and shocked.
I dropped to my knees.
Hands clutching my chest.
Every nerve in my body felt lit.
Not pain.
Occupation.
"Ira!" Devansh was beside me instantly.
I couldn't answer.
Because something was wrong.
The absence that thing carried…
was no longer outside.
It had found a reference.
And it was inside my field.
Meera's voice was distant. "It's gone. I can't see it anymore."
That was the problem.
Because I could.
Not as a shape.
As a pressure that did not belong to emotion.
Did not belong to the city.
Did not belong to me.
Devansh's hands steadied my shoulders. "What did you do?"
I swallowed hard.
"I stopped it from choosing her," I whispered.
"And?"
My voice shook. "And I don't think it left."
Silence fell.
Not empty.
Watching.
And somewhere beyond Vayukshi's hidden edges, structures built to observe anomalies registered something new.
Not a breach.
Not a construct.
A successful relocation.