I didn't leave the estate the next day.
Not because I was told to stay.
Because I wanted to think.
The gathering had ended without anything openly changing, but that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was what had happened underneath it, in the pauses, in the interruptions, in the way things shifted without being explained.
That was where the answer was.
Or at least the beginning of one.
I stayed in the study longer than usual, not reading, not doing anything that required attention, just sitting with it and going over what I had already seen.
The first part was simple.
When I acted without thinking about the outcome, when I stopped trying to follow whatever structure I thought I was supposed to follow, Darius paid attention.
Not casual attention, but focused, and that much was clear now.
The second part took longer to settle distance.
