POV: Riley

We worked on it. Breathing exercises. Mindfulness. Teaching Thea to recognize when stress was building before it manifested as frozen time.

Progress was slow. But it was progress. On the eighth day after Thea's return, Luna made a discovery.

"Riley, Catherine, you need to see this."

We gathered in Luna's lab. She pulled up network displays showing consciousness patterns.

"Thelma and Xavier's fragments," she said. "Thea freed them from The Unmaker. I've been reconstructing their consciousnesses using the network as a foundation. It worked. Partially."

My breath caught. "Partially?"

"They're not fully themselves. More like echoes. Impressions of who they were. They have some memories, some personality. But...