**SAGE POV**
The world I knew had dissolved into light and shadow.
The Door was no longer a wall, it was a heartbeat. It pulsed around me, every breath trembling with silver-blue energy that felt half-alive. Time didn’t move here. Not really. Sometimes I thought it did, but the moment I blinked, everything shifted again. The same fragments of moonlight rearranged into new shapes, new illusions meant to keep me contained.
My prison was beautiful. And that was the cruelest part.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I remembered waking. The sound of it. A hum deep in the bones of the world, calling me by name. My energy stirred before my body did, like my magic had heard something I couldn’t.
Then I heard his voice.
Jesse.
It came faintly at first, like wind against stone, then strong
