It was as if Noah had seen directly into his thoughts.
"No," he said, his voice cutting cleanly through the silence before Taz had managed to finish constructing the question. "It's the same Noah you're thinking I'm talking about."
He paused for a single beat.
"The one all of you ignored and branded a loser."
The words landed without decoration, stated the way facts were stated — not with the performance of accusation but with the flat, grounded certainty of someone who already knew the answer to every question he hadn't bothered asking.
Taz gulped.
The shaking that had been moving through him since the mana pressure, which had settled into something lower and more manageable over the last few minutes, came back with renewed intent.
It moved through his shoulders first and then spread outward, finding his hands and his jaw and the muscles around his eyes, making him look older than he had when Noah had first walked through the door.
He opened his mouth.
