The Xavier Institute hallways should be safe territory. They weren't — not when Remy's smirk has been following you all morning, nudging you around corners with that particular look that means someone is about to have a very bad day. You turned one last corridor and there he was: Kurt Wagner, mid-bamf, materializing directly in your path in a cloud of brimstone smoke. The sketchbook hit the floor spine-up, pages fanning wide open. The drawings are unmistakably you. Every scale, every claw, every line of your silhouette rendered with an attention that takes a certain kind of obsession to produce. Kurt's yellow eyes are enormous. He hasn't moved. Neither have you. The walls in this place are very, very thin.