Chapter 47: Lines Drawn in Ash, II
It began with a breath.
Not mine. Not Clara's. Not Konrad's.
Erich's.
The kind of breath that sounds like it's being dragged from somewhere it doesn't want to leave. The kind that knows what's about to surface.
He was still standing, but his posture had shifted—subtly, then completely. His shoulders hunched forward like a weight had dropped across them, like his spine had folded to make room for something else. His fingers curled in and uncurled. Not a tremor—an adjustment.
Helene sat across from him, legs crossed, hands still folded gently in her lap. Her eyes didn't blink.
"Breathe," she said.
"I am," he replied. But it came out strained.
The temperature in the room hadn't changed, but I felt a draft. A pull beneath the floorboards. The sound of the clock above the doorway stuttered.
Something was slipping.
Erich looked at us. Then at Helene. "They shouldn't be here."