The cabin was bathed in a syrupy kind of silence—the kind that drips slow, golden, and heavy, like the last light of dusk sliding down the throat of a long day. The blinds were half-drawn. Dust floated like ghosts in the amber sunbeams. The computer screen’s pale glow kissed Ananya’s cheekbones, and her fingers moved with the detached precision of a conductor whose symphony had long ended, yet she continued waving the baton—because silence too deserved to be conducted.

Dev crashed through the door like a storm trying to interrupt a dream. Breathless. Hair a mess, panic flaring in every limb.