POV: Daniel

The world had become thinner since Clara’s lesson.

The air.

The ground.

The space between one heartbeat and the next.

Everything taut, as if the new reality was a wire stretched nearly to breaking.

The child stepped close behind Clara, his movements ghost-silent, his form more stable than before — but still too radiant, too volatile. A newborn star with a child’s body.

It watched the sky more than it watched us.

It knew what ...