Ten minutes.

I have this much.

At least, this is how much I have, based on the wiki, which is already up in my head like it usually is – not as an accessible tab to consult but as an underlying layer of context that is always on. Vorn shows up ten minutes after the final vendor finishes selling in the row. That was four minutes ago.

Six minutes.

Lyra is folding the final display bolt. She is quick and deliberate, and her eyes do not look in my direction, nor is there anything happening in this market aside from the torch in the door, casting a long shadow in the dark of the stone. I sit on a stool, able to access all the information in the wiki, and with the open intervention branch in front of me, ready to take action if I am the type of person to do such a thing, and roughly six minutes to determine which type of person I am.

There is no data available on the outcome because no Kai ever made it this far.

Okay then.

"Lyra," I say.

She turns her gaze upon me – same as before. Patiently, slightly curious, ready.

And today, I am not saying nothing.

"How long has it been since you and Daren have had a conversation?" I ask her. "No, not about the dinner arrangements, the booth, or even just the planning, but a conversation."

She stops mid-fold.

It is not that split second of frozen silence when I mentioned Vorn. It is the other kind of stillness that comes when the question has hit someplace within someone and it is weighing their decision to acknowledge or not.

"It’s a weird question," she tells me.

"Maybe."

She places the folded bolt back onto the counter. She is not grabbing another one. "So why are you asking me this?"

"I have watched you two for the past week," I explain. "You know Daren better than he knows himself, and it’s starting to show more and more. And I am thinking it is time to let that be known by others besides myself."

Skill: Observe

Flag Response: Emotional connection — suppression mechanism engaged. Corruption level: 91/100. Vulnerability status: high. Potential intervention period: open.

Remark: First flag indicating breach of emotional distance noted. No such flag previously identified.

No such flag previously identified.

She watches me for a while. The light of the torch glints off the gold in her hair, making it appear even more vibrant, and she has the look of someone who has carried something at a certain angle for a long time and is weary of maintaining that angle.

"You have known us for a week now," she begins. Uninflected. Not hostile, but exacting.

"Yes. I am aware. Why does it matter?"

"Why do you care?"

And there you have the question, right? I pause for a beat and then conclude that if I am to destroy the entire script, I may as well be truthful in my destruction.

"Because Daren is one of the best people I’ve met in — " I pause. Reset. "In a long time. And so are you. And something is happening in the space between us, and I don’t believe that either of you initiated the phenomenon, and I don’t think either of you understands how much progress it has made."

Silence from Lyra.

Silence in the market.

Maybe four minutes. Maybe three.

"He never asks," she says after some time. Softly. Not angrily — just truthfully. "About anything. The stall, what I’m thinking, what I want. He speaks of the guild, the dungeon raids, the dinner. He speaks to me at times without knowing it, and then he looks at me as if nothing is wrong and I — " She breaks off. "It’s okay. He doesn’t mean to."

"I know he doesn’t."

"Well, it doesn’t qualify as a problem then."

"It is," I counter. "But it lacks intent. Those are two separate concepts."

She stares at me with a gaze I cannot completely decipher. Skill Observe attempts:

Emotional Condition: Grief related. Non-acute — chronic. Extended suppression period. Principal bond strain: unaddressed by both parties.

Corruption Response: Status quo maintained. Vulnerability level steady. Intervention opportunity: active.

Static.

91/100 and it isn’t moving. I look at it, and I feel some tension ease in my chest without realizing it had ever been there.

"You should tell him," I suggest. "Not about anything specific, really. Only, that you need him to ask. That’s the whole thing – the part he doesn’t understand."

"This shouldn’t have to be discussed."

"Everything worth discussing feels that way first."

She picks up the folded bolt and stacks it with the others, moving with more hesitancy than before. "Unclassified with a social skill and you only knew us a week ago," she remarks, but without hostility.

"Friendly Conversation," I clarify. "It’s more multi-purpose than you think."

This draws the half-laugh. More briefly than last time. She presses her fingers into the edge of the counter top and stares at the ledger without opening it.

"He’s coming back tonight," she says in hushed tones, "and he’s in a good mood thanks to dinner and will tell me all about it and ask if I’m alright and I’ll tell him that I am and that will be that."

"If you do nothing else."

"I don’t know how."

"You did it to me just now."

She meets my gaze then.

We stare at each other for long moments.

The torch by the door flares in response to a sudden rush of wind blowing through from the alleyway.

The shadow wavers and shifts.

The wiki automatically switches to viewing the entrance footage when proximity alarms activate.

⚠️ PROXIMITY ALARM

VORN – detected. Distance: 60 meters. Approach vector: Entrance, main row.

ETA: 90 seconds.

Flags: Active – 4

Mood: Focus

In less than ninety seconds, my wiki will still have no relevant data.

In less than ninety seconds, Vorn will be within sixty meters of me.

In less than ninety seconds, Daren will remain in the city where he belongs and be doing what he should with no hint that anything is going wrong.

The corruption meter reads at ninety-one percent static and hasn’t moved in a while. For the first time in seven Chapters, I have actually broken the script.

"When he gets home tonight," I say. "Tell him you need him to ask. Say it like that exactly. Don’t have to say why."

She is silent for a moment.

"And if he doesn’t even know how to do that?"

"Then at least you’ll both know that. And that will be a different sort of problem."

Sixty meters. Forty-five seconds.

Lyra glances at the ledger. Then at the folded cloth. Then at me.

"All right," she says.

I stand up from the stool.

"I’ll leave you alone to close up," I say.

She nods. Gone already, somewhere else in her head, thinking about something else, the careful angle in her gaze having shifted perhaps two degrees but that makes all the difference.

I start walking toward the row entrance.

Vorn is approaching from the left—dark clothing, unhurried, on-time. His eyes meet mine at roughly the same time that mine meet his. Fifteen meters. His User Interface floats above us, visible only to me.

VORN — Independent Contractor (Unaffiliated)

Combat rank: A-

Relationship / Lyra: 381/1000

Active Flags: 4

Mood: Focused → Recalculating

Hidden: ⚠️ [Observe — 30% reveal attempt...]

Hidden: Variable detected in script. Assessment required.

Recalculating.

Vorn stops. We are standing ten meters apart in an empty market row, Lyra twenty feet behind me finishing with her ledger, the torchlight casting everything in amber hues and miniature scale.

He gives me the same kind of glance he gave me at the Broken Crown—incredulous, calculating, patient. Yet this time there is something subtly different in his demeanor. The glance at the Broken Crown conveyed the message, I see you there and I am not concerned.

This glance conveys something else entirely.

"Kai," he says.

"Vorn."

His eyes dart from me to the stall. Then back to me. A small, unreadable shift in expression occurs.

"Passing through?" he says.

"Not really. More heading back to where I came from."

"Interesting."

I move aside to the side of the row, yielding the path but neither blocking nor confronting.

Three seconds.

He nods and walks away, and I hear Lyra call out his name from behind me, her voice steady after spending the last twenty minutes getting serious questions answered and slipping into the same measured cadence she uses before going under.

But at a different angle.

I go back to Daren’s room without turning around, go to the wiki, and see that there isn’t an entry for tonight anymore, the place where there used to be a summary now blank.

WIKI ENTRY — Lyra’s Unraveling

STATUS: ⚠️ Route divergence detected. Original data no longer valid.

New entry: Generating.

Current corruption meter: 91/100

Flag: Point of No Return – PENDING 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Pending.

Not locked. Not triggered.

Pending.

I slide my hands into my pockets and walk down the empty market, the sensation hitting me like a wave for the first time since waking up here on cobblestones.

The feeling of having absolutely no clue what happens next.

The worst sensation I’ve ever experienced.

And it’s the first thing that ever felt real.