I wish Landry's arrival did not feel significant, but it does, annoyingly.
I have seen enough in the last fortnight and, if I am being honest, even before that, to know he is not here for his own ego. He is here for the younger boys sitting in front of me.
He halts, but he does not move in front of me, crowd me, or place himself between me and Archer. He is not trying to take this out of my hands.
He simply comes to stand at my shoulder, close enough to change the shape of the situation entirely.
And I feel him too.
Immediately.
His aura is much stronger than Archer's. Unmistakably so. Heavier, deeper, and far more assured. It settles into the air around us with a force my body recognises at once, and that ancient instinct in me responds before I can stop it.
It does not feel like f
