He jerks his hand back.
The thread thrums louder now, as though aware of being recognized. It coils upward, seeking him, twitching with hunger. Zixuan quickly tugs it down, the motion abrupt—almost violent.
"Don't touch it," she says. Her voice isn't warning. It's pleading. "That thread remembers everything we buried. Including the thing that wanted out."
Cecilion's breath frosts.
"I thought we sealed it."
"No," she says. "We fed it. All of us. Every invocation. Every sacrifice. The Fold was never a prison. It was a gestation chamber. And we were its midwives."
Behind her, the corridor begins to pulse with a heartbeat not their own. The walls ripple—not stone, not light, but something between flesh and echo. The mirror floor beneath them blackens, no longer reflective. Instead, it shows possibilities—some already dead, others writhing, trying to crawl out of the glass like drowned memories gasping for breath.
