First message
I watched Vex hurry out of the library, his head down, the too-big strap of his bag slipping off his shoulder. Pathetic, really. My text to the study group—"Change of plans, meet at my place. Don't bring the anchor."—had done its work with elegant simplicity. No drama. Just a realignment of social gravity. Caleb fell into step beside me, grinning like he’d won a prize. "He looked pretty crushed."
I didn't return the grin. I simply adjusted the cuff of my sleeve. "Crushed is a sentiment. I observed a correction." The distinction was everything. Sentiment was for the target. For the controlled. I was merely the architect of the world as it should be. Leo’s loneliness wasn’t my doing; it was the natural result of his own failure to be anything other than what I had always known him to be. Weak. And my role, as ever, was simply to help the truth reveal itself.