CHEYENNE
The bark shaving is gone.
Not brushed aside.
Not crushed under careless movement.
Gone.
The dust strip along the eastern window ledge has been smoothed cleanly, not in a hurried swipe but in a precise pass that removes trace without drawing attention. The stone is undisturbed beyond that narrow strip, which means whoever leaned there returned deliberately and corrected what they found.
Layla inhales slowly beneath my ribs.
Clean removal, she says.
“Yes.”
No accidental brushing. No clumsy elbow. No oversight.
Someone noticed the marker.
Someone understood it did not belong.
I do not stop walking when I see the absence. I let my gaze skim the ledge as casually as it did yesterday, and I continue down the corridor without altering pace.
Reaction would collapse the field.
