Chapter 34 Thirty Four

• The penthouse felt strange this morning. Not cold, exactly just off, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
• Sera moved through the rooms like she did before everything shattered: aware of space, sound, scent. But now it felt different, no longer a surveillance fortress. Just a home tempered by mourning and memory.
• Lucien met her in the control room. He’d been up late decoding a dormant folder Elise never flagged: “OPUS_FINAL_LOGS.”