The sound Zane made when he fell was not loud enough to command the room.
It was not the sharp crack of a body hitting the ground, not the violent disruption people expected when something went wrong in a space built on control. It was softer than that. A wrong sound. The sound of weight giving up before anyone could catch it. The sound of something finally failing after being held together by discipline alone.
Elisabeth saw it happen in pieces.
The slight sway. The way his hand reached for the table and found nothing. The hesitation, as though his body had attempted a correction and failed mid-calculation, the correction aborting without warning. His knees buckled first, then the rest of him followed, folding downward with a lack of resistance that made her stomach drop before her mind caught up.
For a fraction of a second, the room froze.
Then voices collided.
