They did not leave the corridor.
Devansh remained facing the sealed passage long after the others fell into silence. His awareness pressed outward, inward, downward—toward the foundational layers he had enforced for centuries.
They resisted him.
Not sharply.
Firmly.
Like something old refusing a hand it no longer recognized.
"This isn't how it's supposed to behave," Rehaan said quietly.
"No," Devansh replied. "This is how it behaves when a command source destabilizes."
Rehaan studied him. "You're still inside its architecture."
"Yes."
"But you're no longer aligned."
Devansh did not answer.
Because he could feel it.
A faint but persistent dissonance through his awareness. Where once the city's laws had flowed through him like gravity, they now encountered… friction.
He was still part of the structure.
But he was no longer at rest within it.
Ira moved to his side. "What happens if it stops listening to you altogether?"
He met her gaze. "Then I stop being what I am."
The words were simple.
Their implication was not.
Rehaan's voice lowered. "And what does that make you?"
Devansh looked back at the sealed wall.
"Mortal," he said. "Or something that fails."
Ira's chest tightened.
She hadn't realized until that moment how much of him had been held up by that unbroken alignment. How much of his existence rested on being a function rather than a being.
"You didn't have to do that," she said softly.
He turned to her.
"Yes," he replied. "I did."
She searched his face. "Why?"
The answer rose through him without structure.
Because when the city moved to claim her, something in him moved first.
Because the space where emotion had begun to form no longer permitted neutrality.
Because the centuries had rearranged themselves around a single presence.
"I am no longer capable," he said quietly, "of allowing certain outcomes."
Her breath stilled.
He felt the admission take shape within him—unstable, unfinished, irreversible.
Rehaan looked away.
"That," he murmured, "is the most dangerous development so far."
Devansh did not dispute it.