The morning after the explosion didn’t look like dawn.

It looked like aftermath.

The sky was a dull gray, the kind that seemed to absorb light instead of giving it. Smoke still rose faintly in the distance where the Cormac facility had burned through the night. And in Violet’s mind, the echoes hadn’t stopped the voice, the light, the flash of Elena’s face before everything went dark.

Bryan had barely slept. He sat by the kitchen counter, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee gone cold, watching her.

Violet stood near the balcony, the small glowing capsule cradled in her palms. It pulsed — soft, golden, alive — like a...