The roof stopped arguing with me.
It wasn't a rush of new, frantic power. It was a profound quiet. The background noise of the universe, the constant, low-grade argument between my will and the world's stubborn inertia, had simply stopped. My Lucent Harmony, no longer a tight shield held under my ribs, settled into the walls and the floor, and the world felt honest. The Grey lay under my boots like two plain pages that refused to be dramatic. Valeria was light in my hand, not because she weighed less, but because the room had finally, truly agreed with her. High Radiant wasn't the feeling of sitting on top of a mountain. It was the feeling of the mountain standing up when I did.
Lucifer eased a last sunbrand out of the brass seam, his twin crowns of white and black dimming to a companionable glow. "Roof's clear," he said.
