Sunlight strained through the small high windows of the estate's med bay in soft pale rectangles —the only thing in the room that still answered to the rules a normal eye expected of a normal morning.
Beyond the rectangles, the room had quietly seceded from the century.
No monitors blinked. Instead, rings of levitating luminance drifted about the bedside like bored seraphim on retainer, exhaling soft golden breath into nothing. No IV pole cluttered the scene. A single filament of luminous vapor uncoiled from some invisible treasury and threaded itself, with the patience of a saint and the appetite of a glutton, into the unconscious girl's left forearm.
Neither was a cardiac monitor beeped.
A slow, astonished arpeggio of light pulsed against the far wall, translating flesh and blood into music—except this particular body was currently playing a note ARIA, after six full minutes of sulking, still refused to name.
The room had ceased behaving like architecture.
