I didn't hesitate.
Not outwardly, at least.
"We're going in," I said.
The words echoed through the vast glass chamber, carried by stone and silence alike. For a brief, fragile moment, nothing happened, no roar of disapproval from the cave, no sudden collapse, no unseen thing lunging from the walls to punish my arrogance.
Just my voice, hanging there.
Then the reactions came.
Annalise sighed first, long and weary, the sound of someone who had already known this was coming the moment she saw the tablet. Her fingers twitched, phantom strings tightening around nothing, as if bracing for the cave to pull back.
Nora followed, quieter but no less resigned. She pinched the bridge of her nose and exhaled slowly, eyes half-lidded in that way she got when she'd already run through every possible outcome and disliked all of them. "Figures," she muttered.
Kent's response was… complicated.
