The silence that followed my words settled over the room with a weight that pressed against the walls themselves. Music faded into nothing, conversation died without warning, and every gaze shifted between Harren and me as though the outcome of the moment required witnesses.
The air felt different. Measured. Recalculated.
Harren's expression no longer carried the ease he had worn earlier. The composure remained, but the control behind it had thinned, replaced by something sharper, something far less contained. His plan had not simply failed. It had turned against him in front of the very audience he intended to use.
He stepped closer again as if he just remembered something, his voice dropping, losing its earlier polish.
"You speak with a confidence that does not belong to you," he said. "A few well-placed words do not change what you are. You are a shadow trying to pass for substance. That does not make you real."
