I waited five minutes after Cheon left.
Counted the seconds in my head while leaning against the wall of this dusty storage room like some kind of creep who gets off on making class representatives come during school hours.
Which, to be fair, I kind of just did.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was I needed to think.
Needed to process what the fuck just happened.
Cheon saw through me.
Not completely. Not the whole picture. But enough to be dangerous.
She knew my Essentia had changed. Knew I'd somehow picked up Mera's spatial signature. Knew something was fundamentally different about me between yesterday and today.
The question I couldn't answer was how.
In the novel, was Cheon's ability explained like that? Could she actually read Essentia signatures like a fucking barcode scanner?
I honestly couldn't remember.
