I kept my hand an inch from the glass door and breathed, slow in, slower out. The air tasted like perfume over stone. Lust on the surface. Something straighter, stronger and far older underneath. Empyrean Order.
The moment you say the name, the room stops pretending not to listen.
'Arthur,' Valeria murmured along my forearm, bright but sharp, 'you're making the face you make right before you decide to pick a fight with a building.'
"I'm remembering," I said.
The threads of compulsion in the walls brightened, singing in a single chorus. The ridges in the ceiling picked up a soft, insistent beat. The glass door before me fogged, and the word flashed again, polite as a guillotine.
KNEEL.
