The journal went live at midnight.
Which meant Evie found out at midnight, which meant the text arrived at twelve-oh-three, which meant Nara was asleep and the phone lit up the dark and she picked it up with the specific reflex of someone who had been a trauma surgeon for four years and answered every midnight alert.
She read the message.
Put the phone down.
Picked it back up.
The message was not words — not initially. It was a screenshot. The journal's front page. The article listing. Three names.
*Gael Ryn. Evie Harrow. Nara Voss Ashveil.*
She stared at the name.
*Evie Harrow.*
Brynn's granddaughter. The girl with the footnote on her wall. The annotated paper. The outer territory clinic. Footnote eleven tested seventeen times with inadequate equipment because she couldn't stop.
