My hand stayed against Adrien's chest. I could feel his heart beneath my palm, weak, fighting, but beating. The pale light from Vita's Tears moved through him again, and the black strands shrank, their voices growing smaller, until one of them turned toward me.
It pressed against the violet barrier. For a second I saw something behind it, a dark space, a mouth beneath gold, a line of children holding hands, a figure standing far away wrapped in prayer cloth and red glass.
Then my aura moved. It wasn't intentional. I didn't summon anything, didn't speak. The warmth beneath my hand simply spread, soft gold touching the black strand, and the voices stopped. The dark thing folded into itself, then vanished.
The room fell silent. Not the strained silence of people waiting for something worse. A real silence, the kind that comes after a storm has finally left the roof.
