The infirmary at Artemis Art Gallery had always been designed to feel temporary.
White walls softened by muted artwork. Clean surfaces. Minimal equipment. A place meant to stabilize, not to hold. The kind of space that reassured visitors that whatever brought them there would pass.
Tonight, it felt like containment.
Galathea Brooks stood just inside the doorway, her hand still resting lightly against the frame as if crossing fully into the room required a decision she hadn't yet agreed to make.
Behind her, the door clicked shut with quiet finality.
Cael Alexander remained near it, not blocking the exit, but close enough that his presence formed a boundary all the same.
Tansy sat on the edge of one of the examination beds, her feet swinging gently above the floor, the motion slow and absent-minded, like a pendulum marking time no one else could measure.
There was a sketchbook balanced on her knees.
Of course there was.
Galathea's gaze fixed on it before anything else.
