Power did not shatter when it failed.
It bent.
And bending, Aria had learned, was far more dangerous.
The estate no longer felt like a fortress. It felt like a mechanism under strain, gears grinding too softly, too smoothly, the sound of something precise being forced to accommodate a shape it had never been designed to hold.
Her shape.
Aria woke before dawn with that certainty settled deep in her bones. Not fear. Not anticipation.
Resolve.
The window beside her bed still stopped short of fully opening. The inch of refusal remained. But she no longer tested it. Resistance required effort. Acceptance invited complacency.
She chose neither.
Instead, she observed.
From the moment her feet touched the floor, the house responded.
Lights adjusted.
Temperature calibrated.
Security presence shifted, subtle but unmistakable.
Dante's systems were still watching her, but now they hesitated, as if awaiting instruction that never quite arrived.
She dressed deliberately.
