(Yvette POV)
By the time I stepped out of the institute, the sky had already begun to dim.
Paris wore twilight differently than the city I had left behind. The light didn't disappear all at once—it softened, thinned, lingered as if reluctant to go. Streetlamps blinked on one by one, casting long reflections across wet stone from an earlier rain.
My hands hurt.
Not sharply. Not enough to make me stop using them.
The ache was dull and persistent, the kind that settled into the bones and reminded you that you had pushed yourself past comfort and into necessity. I flexed my fingers absently as I walked, my bag heavy against my shoulder, the smell of stock and metal still clinging faintly to my clothes no matter how many times I washed them.
The institute had a way of draining you without spectacle.
No dramatic failures. No shouting matches.
Just repetition, correction, and the quiet weight of expectations.
