Gabriel returned to his chamber with unhurried steps, each one echoing faintly along the hollow marble corridors of the von Jaunez manor. The air remained still, artificially tempered, touched by the faint hum of background ether.
He paused at the threshold of his room, a space too curated to be anything but another part of the illusion. The doorknob turned beneath his fingers without resistance. No guards. No eyes. No locks. It should have unsettled him more, but it only confirmed what he suspected: Olivier still didn't know.
The room was the same as he had left it, perfect and faintly wrong. The curtains hung too still. The bed was untouched. The window framed a view that didn't quite hold together if you stared at it long enough. And Gabriel did. Just long enough to see the blur where the world fell off the page.
