Axel and I start the morning the same way we have started every morning since the orb entered our lives, with too much coffee, not enough sleep, and that tight shared silence that means neither of us knows where to begin but we both know we cannot ignore it anymore.
The orb sits on the table between us in the war room, resting on a folded cloth like that somehow makes it safer, its glow steady and pale and deceptively calm, and I keep finding my eyes drifting back to it even when I am trying to focus on the maps and notes Axel has spread out around it.
It feels wrong to have it here, out in the open, and it feels worse to hide it, because no matter where we put it the thing feels present in a way I cannot explain, like it is aware of the room and the tension and us.
“It didn’t react lik
