The word landed like a wound.
Custody.
Rehaan's mouth curved humorlessly. "There it is."
Ira's throat tightened. "I'm not an object."
"No," the presence replied. "You are an event."
The veil shifted, thinning and thickening as if testing what form it should take.
"You are restructuring systems that were sealed," it said. "Your continued emergence destabilizes both mortal and immortal architectures."
Devansh's voice cut through the space. "She is not yours to stabilize."
Silence followed.
Then—
"You are not a recognized authority," the presence responded.
The boundary pulsed faintly.
"You are an anomaly sustained by a legacy error."
Devansh's jaw tightened.
Ira felt the tremor in him—not emotion, but structural strain.
"What happens," she asked quietly, "if I refuse you?"
The veil brightened.
"You cannot refuse gravity," the voice said. "Only where it pulls."
A ripple passed through the air.
Images brushed the edge of Ira's awareness.
White halls.
Ash-lined floors.
Figures standing in a circle around a suspended construct of light.
"They are not one being," she whispered. "They're… networked."
"Yes," Rehaan said. "The Scribes don't lead. They aggregate."
The veil pulsed again.
"You will be isolated," the presence continued. "Studied. Your architecture mapped. Your deviation either corrected… or repurposed."
Devansh moved forward a step.
"That will not happen."
The boundary flared.
For the first time, resistance entered the exchange.
"You are not capable of preventing it," the presence replied. "Your kind was not designed to oppose."
Devansh's breath slowed.
Ira felt something shift beside her.
Not in the city.
In him.
"You're wrong," she said softly.
The veil stilled.
"About what?"
She lifted her gaze to it.
"He wasn't designed to oppose you," she said.
Her hand tightened slightly in his sleeve.
"He was designed not to."