Ivy began avoiding Luara not from fear, nor from conscious resentment, but because some silences demand distance to continue existing, and hers had become too heavy to be sustained before someone who saw more than she asked. The mark on her neck no longer responded only to scarf or strategy, because it pulsed with uncomfortable regularity, reacting to environment, contained emotions, to the bond insisting on reminding there was something there that could no longer be feigned as isolated ...