The transition did not feel like falling.
It felt like remembering.
Valentine’s breath caught as the world folded inward around them, not with violence, but with recognition. Light curved, sound thinned, and for a brief moment she was nowhere and everywhere at once. She felt the convergence stretch through her, not painfully, but insistently, like roots searching for soil that had always known their shape.
Luther’s hand never left hers.
She felt him anchor the shift instinctively, his presence steady and unyielding. Where her power expanded, his grounded it. Where the world tried to pull her apart, he held her together.
When the light faded, the air changed.
It was colder. Older.
Valentine opened her eyes.
They stood on land that should not exist.
A vast valley stretched before th
