The keeper nodded and took the memory like a vow. The street dissolved with a quiet hiss. In its place settled a new clarity: a path forward. The thread in his hand sang softly.

Rion shook his head with a small laugh that tasted of rainwater. “Eden would find us.”

Rion felt his stomach drop into a memory of a different night: fireworks, someone’s hand pulling him away from the edge, the sound of a lullaby whose words he could not find. He tried to reclaim the image, to fix the edges. It slid like oil between his fingers.

Later, by the bookstore window, Mael took Rion’s hand and pressed it to his chest. “You came through a price,” he said. He did not reproach. He did not mourn what was gone. He simply acknowledged what the circle had taken and what it had given. “We are here now.”