The reunion hall is warm with candlelight and old laughter, the kind of night designed to feel like nothing has changed. But the bond doesn't lie. Stellan is across the room, grinning at someone's joke, completely at ease - and yet through the invisible thread stitched between your chests since childhood, you feel the exact shape of what he won't say. Longing. Panic. Something that has no clean name. You were seven when you both pressed your palms to that circle and spoke words neither of you understood. You didn't know there was a second clause. You didn't know tonight had a deadline. Orvyn is here. He's been watching you both all evening with the stillness of someone holding a secret until the exact right moment. That moment, you suspect, is coming fast.