The house breathes before it shifts.
I wait for that breath.
Dinner has swelled into noise, patrol rotations overlapping with laughter and low arguments in the courtyard, boots striking wood and stone in uneven rhythm. The packhouse always inhales at shift change, attention splitting between those coming in and those heading out, and for a few precious minutes no one owns the corridors fully.
Layla tracks it with me.
Now, she says quietly.
I move.
Not through the main hall. Not past the stairs.
I cross my room in three silent steps and slide open the wardrobe panel, fingers pressing the spot Rachel showed me years ago when we were reckless and bored and looking for places elders didn’t go. The maintenance board shifts inward with a faint scrape, and I freeze.
No reaction outside.
