Chapter 186

Chapter 186 SERAPHINA The Collective's representatives arrived on a gray morning when Geneva looked like it was still deciding whether to wake up or go back to sleep. I watched their transport descend through layers of mist, its approach careful and deliberate—nothing like the efficient trajectories our own craft took. It was as if they were feeling their way through the air, uncertain of the welcome they'd find. Three of them emerged. The woman from Meiji Gardens—whose name, we'd learned, was Hikari. A man in his fifties with silver threading through his dark hair, introduced as Chen. And a younger person, perhaps twenty, who gave their name as River and whose neural pattern flickered like candlelight in wind. Kaelos stood beside me at the landing platform, his posture carefully neutral. Behind us, the full Council waited inside—Elena included, though she'd made her reservations abundantly clear in this morning's pre-meeting. "They're already synchronizing," Kaelos murmured, nodding t