The lab's inner doors sealed with a soft hiss. Ruo keyed a sequence into the console, and one of the glass cells at the far end flickered alive, blue-white grids pulsing faintly along the walls like a heartbeat. The air in the room changed, sharp with ozone and something that prickled at the back of Elias's tongue.
Victor moved ahead of them, his boots soundless on the polished floor. He stepped into the cell as easily as stepping onto a stage. "Watch," he said over his shoulder.
He didn't raise his hands dramatically; he only lifted one palm, fingers loose. The grids nearest his palm shimmered, bent, and then strands of pure ether, visible as faint silvery threads, lifted off the floor and coiled in the air. With a slow twist of his wrist, the threads spiraled into a lattice, a shape that hovered and pulsed like a living diagram. It looked effortless, like breathing.
