NEVA POV
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I was running toward Ryke before Ziko had finished the sentence.
*I already have what I need.* Four words, tinny through a stranger's phone, gone before any of us could trace where they'd come from — and underneath the fear that put in me, something else, something I'd been quietly not-examining for three days, finally pushed its way to the front of the line.
I found Ryke in the training yard, mid-sequence, and the words came out of me before I'd decided to let them.
"I need to tell you something," I said. "And I need you to not stop moving while I say it, because I don't think I can get through it if you're looking right at me."
He kept moving. Staff in hand, the same economical rhythm, except I could see — even from the doorway, even with his back half-turned — that ev
