AISLYNThe missing puzzle does not announce itself with drama.

It slips into place quietly, the way truth often does when it has been waiting patiently to be recognized.

I begin where I should have started all along, not with Ashlyn’s authority, but with her desperation.

Power, when pursued for stability, leaves one kind of trail. Power pursued out of fear leaves another entirely. I have already mapped the first. It is the second that draws my attention now.

I return to the earliest records ...