CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE: “If you knock, it better be blood or no breath.”Theo said it at the bottom of the stairs after dinner with his headphones already in one hand and the other on the banister.Lyra met his eyes. “Real only.”“Not residual volume. Not adult nerves. Not June wondering. Real.”“Real only,” Dimitri repeated.Theo went up. The door closed fully. Music started—loud enough to be a wall, not loud enough to be a fight.The house sat under the closed wood like it had been given a test.Eight minutes in, Anna coughed hard from the living room. Once. Twice. A wet third.Lyra and Dimitri both stood.Neither moved toward the stairs.“Checking,” Lyra said, already with Anna.She watched the chest, the color, the recovery between coughs. Anna scowled, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and reached for a toy like the interruption had been personal.“Clear,” Lyra said.Dimitri nodded once. No glance at the stairs. No shared idea of borrowing the boy behind the music. The r
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