The pendant burned cold against my chest. Three hundred miles away, Natalia was listening to every word through our bond. I could feel her horror. Her dawning understanding. Her desperate wish that I would stand up, walk out of this building, and never think about this conversation again.
But I couldn't do that.
Because I already knew the answer.
I'd known it from the moment I woke up in this body with Kaelen Leone's memories rattling around inside a skull that didn't belong to me. I'd known it every time the System upgraded my stats or fed me cryptic messages about audiences and entertainment value. I'd known it when Apollo's Gacha gave me powers no natural Aspect could explain.
I wasn't a late bloomer.
I wasn't an anomaly.
I was an experiment.
"My father didn't disappear eighteen years ago," I said. "He succeeded."
Finch nodded slowly. "That's my hypothesis, yes."
