The operating room door closed behind Sebastián with the whisper of a rubber seal. The red line of the threshold remained like a freshly drawn scar on the wall. At his side, Selena walked without a sound, precise as a scalpel that already knows which is flesh and which is error. The air in the hallway smelled of cold disinfectant and contained electricity; the white, relentless light made everything seem newly born from a mold: the plaques, the steel, the glass, the silence.

They did not speak. Sebastián's will held his body with invisible nails; the Indomitable Body, still stitching fibers inside, burned with the patience of a metal subjected to tempering. The pain marked a low, constant beat, like a machine that refuses to negotiate. He moved forward anyway—not because it was easy, but because he had chosen not to stop.

In the distance, before the staff lobby, the day insinuated itself through a rectangle of opaline glass. The clarity came higher, more oblique: the morning had stretched without asking permission and the world was already facing noon. It was there, on that edge between clinic and street, that something changed.

First came the murmur: a diesel engine idling, hoarse, disciplined. Then, the brief gleam of a white body passing along the edge of the window. The sound of a steering wheel turning, a controlled squeal of brakes, the dry vibration of a chassis taking the last pothole before stopping. The van appeared whole on the other side of the glass: discreet, without shouting logos, with the name of a private laundry in weary letters that sought no customers, only recognition.

—They're here —Selena said without emotion, and in her voice the fact was recorded like a surgical datum.

The vehicle parked flush against the service curb. The rear door opened in two wings with a muffled blow; inside, anchored by elastic bands and rods, vertical shadows could be guessed. The first worker jumped to the pavement—a man, in his forties, hands of a trade that know when to push and when to hold—; behind him, a woman with a ponytail, a gaze that obeys order before haste; then another younger man, elastic, and finally a second woman with measured steps. Four, as it should be.

The oldest released the first buckle. The dry snap of the strap as it came loose cut the air—tac, and the fabric vibrated like a brief string. They pushed out a rolling steel rack, tall, with a wide base. The wheels caught the edge of the platform and descended the folding ramp with a contained screech. In a second came two more, different: one lower, another with the top bar extended to the maximum. From inside the van others still peeked out: geometries of metal awaiting hands.

The covers, hanging from the bars, formed a mute forest. There were long ones, straight, heavy, designed for tall bodies; there were medium ones, trimmed; there were short ones, tight at the shoulders, so narrow that their shadow looked like that of a small body; there were some of double thickness, with light padding, as if protecting a fabric that must never wrinkle. And not all were black: dark gray predominated, but opaque navies appeared, dull charcoals, small rectangles of labels with codes that did not demand to be read by strangers. The quick count, to the eye of one who understands logistics, said that among the racks there gathered about forty garments: covered stations, anticipated needs.

The first of the racks touched the sidewalk. Croch-croch: the wheels vibrated over the cobblestones, then over the tiles of the service ramp. The young man pushed the second; the woman with the ponytail controlled the drift of the third with her palm. The fourth, lower, was guided by the other woman with the economy of movement of one who knows the weight of accidents that did not happen. From the street, the van exhaled heat. The smell of ironing and clean starch mixed with the cold air of the clinic escaping through the crack.

People looked. Not like a mob, but like attention does when it smells the unusual. A bread delivery man slowed down; an old woman with an IV in her arm, in a wheelchair pushed by an aide, stopped her journey for a second and narrowed her eyes; two teenagers passing by with helmets in hand froze, whispering. The service entrance of a private clinic rarely receives an entire forest of fabrics. Curiosity, soft and persistent, is a tide Selena does not like.

—Inside —she ordered, already at the door—. Now. Through the staff entrance. All. Without stopping.

She didn't shout. She didn't need to. Her tone cut through the murmur like a sharp blade cuts taut thread. The four nodded in sync and pushed. The first rack entered through the threshold: the wheels jumped the step with a muffled thud; the metal vibrated and then took the clean plain of the hallway. Sebastián stepped half a step back to make space for them. He did not want to be the wrong wall; today, he had to learn to be a useful wall.

He then saw, without the filter of the glass, the diversity with care: on the first rack, the long covers were the majority; wide shoulders, lengths exact for a one eighty-two; zippers closed to the neck that promised neutrality. On the second, half and half: medium and short pieces, narrow along the line of the clavicle, light; a volume that did not belong to his body. On the third, heavier longs, perhaps coats; on the fourth, alternating lengths, some with tags at the bottom, as if they were for torsos that had not yet fully grown. Details that did not need explanation, not yet.

Selena took the lead toward the staff corridor. The hallway, narrower than the main one, smelled of new rubber and air conditioning. The light was the same, but here there were no paintings or feigned plants; only functional walls, a low blue line so as not to lose the guide, doors with magnetic locks. The sound of the wheels, added up, became a breath of iron. Croch, croch, croch: each floor joint returned a syllable.

—Zero-Three —Selena said, and brought the card close to the reader.

The panel emitted an obedient beep. The swinging door opened to a wide space: a support room, rectangular, with two tall windows that stole light without giving views. On the left wall, three horizontal steel bars awaited; on the right, another line of anchors; at the back, a long table of synthetic surface, smooth as an operating room without a corpse. The polished floor returned reflections at the passage of the wheels.

—Here —Selena added, and her finger drew trajectories in the air—. Two racks against the left, two against the right. Leave an aisle in the center. Quick.

The workers maneuvered. The eldest turned the first with a precise quarter turn; the woman with the ponytail took charge of the second, making sure the covers did not catch on the corner of the frame; the young man pushed the third until he heard the click of the wheel stop. The other woman aligned the fourth against the right wall and secured the brake with the tip of her shoe. When they finished, the forest was divided into two facing rows, leaving a silent corridor so that a person could walk between fabrics with the comfort of one who walks a passage of shadow.

—Open first and third row —Selena indicated—. Only the first third. I don't want more exposed to the air than necessary.

The eldest ran the first zipper. The noise of the zipper—a fine rain of plastic teeth—filled the room with a domestic sound that, nevertheless, there felt solemn. Inside, dull black garments appeared, blues so dark they seemed another species of black, charcoal grays. There were no ornaments or logos. The seams looked like promises of obedience. The shirts spoke the language of minimal friction; the trousers, that of the straight fall that does not betray. In the third rack, when opened, appeared shorter pieces, narrow cut, minimal shoulders. The air barely swayed two short covers; no one asked anything. Sometimes silence is the correct form of respect.

Sebastián approached slowly. The torn shirt still clung to areas where the blood had not negotiated a complete truce with the skin. The new cotton, when he touched it, should feel like warm water on coal. He extended his hand, but waited for Selena's authorization; she gave it with a gesture that could be mistaken for a blink.

—Today we are not looking for elegance —she said—. We are looking for neutrality. The essential so as not to be a fire when you enter.

He nodded. They added no words. Meanwhile, the young man of the team stretched out a folding base beside the table—not for ironing, but to hold boxes and labels. The woman with the ponytail took from a bag a plastic thread gun, a roll of unbranded labels, a pack of transparent sleeves. The eldest, in silence, carefully removed two covers and laid them on the table as if they were instruments.

The door remained open. From the hallway, the austere perfume of the clinic entered in precise cycles. Selena raised her chin a degree.

—Close —she ordered.

The panel accepted the closure with an almost gentle suck. Inside, the world folded back to the things that mattered. The diesel engine's murmur, outside, arrived muffled: the van still waited in case something else had to be brought. It would not be necessary.

—Start changing —Selena said to Sebastián, now without detours—. That shirt. Those pants. Boots, there.

He took the first shirt from the first opened rack. Dense cotton fabric, collar that did not tighten, sleeves that allowed broad movement without turning it into news. He held it for a moment with both hands, like someone weighing the burden of a new oath. Then he turned halfway and began to peel off the old one. The torn fabric resisted where the blood had dried like varnish; when separated, the skin voiced its complaint with a line of burning. No one commented. The older woman opened a large bag with the edge well supported. She received, without looking, the rags: neutrality as a form of care.

The first contact of the clean shirt was a sober relief. It was not tenderness—his body did not know how to translate that way—but it was a tangible truce. The fabric did not scrape; it adhered just enough, protecting without displaying. His breathing, which until then had climbed in steps, found a more continuous rung. He buttoned it without hurry, tested the flex of his shoulders; the seams held without protest. The pants, straight, obedient, fit where they should without asking for a foreign posture. The boots waited with mouths open; the leather smelled of work. He tied them with the economy of one who saves pain as one saves ammunition. The Indomitable Body muttered its complaint and accepted it.

—Enough —Selena said, and in that word there was an acceptance that did not give away praise.

The frameless mirror rested against the wall, covered by a white cloth cover. Sebastián did not uncover it yet. He did not need to see himself to know that he was no longer going to frighten just by entering a room. That was enough. He adjusted the cuffs, tested raising his arms halfway: the Indomitable Body complained with moderation. Acceptable.

On the second rack, a short, narrow cover swayed with a minimal breeze no one admitted to having felt. Its zipper shone a point. Sebastián noticed it with the edge of his vision; he did not name it. Some certainties must be kept until a small gesture makes them inevitable.

—Anything else? —asked the eldest, professional, without a tone of haste.

—Not for the moment —Selena replied—. Wait outside.

The four obeyed. They gathered what belonged to them—two empty auxiliary racks, the folding ramp, a low cart—and slipped through the door as they had entered, without changing the air. As they left, from the hallway seeped a faint murmur of the street: low voices, a bicycle braking, the servile life of a midday that ignored Profane and oaths. The door sealed again.

Sebastián left the bag with his old clothes in a designated corner. He took the dark coat that had remained half covered. It weighed just enough. He put it on. The weight anchored him without turning him into a statue. He breathed. The air went in and out without glass in his throat.

—Let's go —he said, with quiet gravity—. I don't want her to wake up and see me as if I were coming from another war.

—Correct —Selena responded, already turning toward the exit.

He opened. The hallway received them again, now with a faint smell of starch and rubber. The echo of their steps was different: the new fabric did not creak like the torn one. They advanced. Three turns, a short stretch, a crossing where a nurse restrained the impulse to look too much. The magnetic reader once again obeyed Selena's hand. The red line of the medical threshold reappeared.

Before crossing, Selena stopped for a fraction, measured with her eyes the whole: shoulders, fall, collar, hands. She was not seeking beauty, she was seeking silence. She nodded almost imperceptibly.

—Today —she said—, you are mural. Support. Not blade.

Sebastián understood. The blade had served against the Profane. Now it was time not to be a weapon. He crossed the threshold.

Inside, the room preserved the cold smell of places that have seen recent blood. But beneath it floated a human temperature: the breathing of a girl who had not yet learned to trust in the continuity of air. Virka was there, immobile like a beast that protects without blinking; Valentina's small hand still clung to hers with the trembling faith of one who had finally found an edge that does not yield. Narka, in mineral shadow, inclined his head a degree: the gesture with which a mountain acknowledges a change of season.

Helena registered the entrance with a gaze that weighed risks and calmed impulses. She said nothing. It was not necessary. In that room, words were paid in blood or in peace.

Sebastián did not seek words he did not have. He stopped at the exact distance. His shadow, once a poorly extinguished fire, was now only shadow. He said softly:

—Here.

No more was needed. Valentina's gaze stopped on his face, dropped to the new clothes, rose again. She did not smile; at that age, after certain things, a smile is an expensive resource. But her hand did not squeeze tighter out of fear. It remained. That, for an entire world, was enough.

Valentina kept her gaze fixed on Sebastián. The silence that followed his brief word was a new territory: there were no orders or punishments waiting behind, only a calm that weighed more than the blows she remembered. The fabric covered in garment bags breathed nearby, and for the first time she did not feel it as a threat, but as something impossible: belonging.

With trembling fingers, she brushed the edge of the nearest garment. The rustle was a whisper that drew a shiver from her. She did not fully understand what that gesture meant; the only thing she knew was that no one had ever given her something without claiming a price. Her voice came out broken, but it did not stop:

—If this… means I am a daughter, what is… being a daughter to you?

Virka slowly lowered her head, until her red eyes, fixed like burning coals, met those of the girl. The beast did not know how to disguise words; she did not sweeten what burned.

—I don't have that complete answer —she said, her voice deep, hard as stone—. I never had a daughter. But now you are here. And you will not be ornament nor burden. You will walk beside, not behind or beneath. If being a daughter means something, we will discover it together, even if we have to break the world's definitions.

The hand descended and rested on Valentina's head. It was not a caress. It was a seal, a light weight, the mark that she was not alone.

The tears began to run, hot, salty. The girl breathed in gasps, words colliding with sobs:

—It's the first time someone… wants me. I was always… refuse. No one ever wanted me. Not even her. —The word "mother" died in her throat—. And now you say this. I want… yes, I want… but I'm afraid. I don't know if I can live with you. I don't know if I deserve it.

Virka's chest tightened, but she did not remove her hand. She pressed it firmly, driving certainty into where the girl saw only emptiness.

Then Sebastián, who until then had remained still like a wall, stepped forward. His shadow covered her, not as a threat, but as a roof. He placed his hand on Valentina's head, next to Virka's. His voice came out deep, without tremor, heavy with weight:

—No one decides your worth for you. Not the one who brought you into the world, nor the one who tried to erase you from it. Worth is carved with blows, with falls, with rising when no one else does. I didn't choose it at the beginning either. I did it by walking, even when it hurt.

Sebastián's eyes softened for an instant, without losing firmness.

—Life is not for seeking happiness. That word is a deception. Life is for existing face-forward, without a mask, until one recognizes oneself. That is what I promise you: not an illusion of joy, but the space where you can be yourself, even if you tremble. If you stumble, we lift you. If you fail, we learn. If you cannot take a step, we carry you. But we do not let you go.

Valentina listened with reddened eyes, broken breath. Her voice was barely a murmur:

—Even if I fail?

—Even if you fail —Sebastián and Virka replied, in unison.

A deep murmur then filled the room. Narka, until that moment motionless, let his ancient voice flow like a slow river from the stone:

—Life does not ask for smiles. It asks for truth. Those who seek happiness lose themselves in shadows. Those who walk with all their edge, even when it hurts, find ground. They do not lie to you. I have seen them when no eyes were watching. What they say is true.

Valentina opened her mouth with a start. The turtle spoke. She looked at him in pure astonishment, turning immediately to Virka and Sebastián, seeking explanation.

—He… speaks? —she asked, incredulous.

—When it is needed —Narka replied, his golden voice sinking into every corner of the room.

The girl's body trembled, but not from fear. It was the shiver of a world opening larger than she had imagined.

The tears returned, but now they were not of terror, but of relief. Valentina lowered her head, let the weight of those hands on her hair anchor her, and with a thread of voice confessed what she had never allowed herself:

—Then… I'll stay.

The air changed. Virka held her hand firm on the girl's head. Sebastián did not remove his. Narka inclined his head like a mountain that nods. And thus, without more words, what had been doubt became foundation.

The silence that followed the "Then… I'll stay" did not unravel: it settled. It weighed in the air like freshly washed cloth still dripping, heavy, over a rope. The room kept the smell of disinfectant and metal, but beneath that edge something graver and quieter began to walk: certainty. It was not joy, it was not a reward. It was the discreet way in which reality sometimes accepts a word and settles around it. Sebastián withdrew his hand from the crown of the girl's head with care, like one who removes the last wedge that holds a door so that, at last, it closes without violence. Virka left hers a heartbeat longer, a minimal pressure that sealed what had been said. Valentina did not smile: the gesture was learning to exist, but still did not know how to draw itself. On her back, however, something stopped shrinking. The room, which a minute before had been a trench, began to seem like a space where one could breathe without asking permission.

Helena was the first to break the edge of that silence. Not with tenderness; not with a theatricality of relief. Her voice entered clean, with the syllables placed like instruments on a steel table.

—Good. The girl stays. What are we going to do now with Valentina?

It was not a phrase to win consensus; it was a question that prepares a path. Helena's gaze traveled the room without invading: Sebastián, Selena, Virka, the girl; returned to each like one taking exact measurements. Her head did not decorate with promises; she did not know. She enumerated without raising her voice, with that sobriety that in others might seem coldness and in her was respect for what is real:

—There are two priorities. Show her the place where she belongs, the mansion. Or define the next steps before moving her: logistics, rhythm, timing. We can take her today to her future home so that the body puts down root in a space; or decide first the sequence so that no step turns her into noise. One does not exclude the other, but the order matters.

The question remained floating, exact, without lashings or sugar. Valentina listened. In her memory, questions usually carried a trap; here, the question was offered as an edge, not as an abyss. And yet, while Helena traced paths with words, the girl's attention obeyed another gravity: to the left, Narka—in his reduced, silent, mineral form—had settled at arm's length. He did not invade. He seemed to wait for a gesture that perhaps would not occur. Valentina saw him, and curiosity—that creature they had tried to beat out of her—lifted its head like an animal that sniffs.

She brought her fingers closer first. She stopped the movement halfway, remembering that touching had almost always been a form of punishment. She saw no gesture of prohibition in anyone. She advanced a little more. Narka remained. He demanded nothing, he did not move away. When the girl's palms lay extended, open, he let himself be lifted with the grave solemnity with which stone yields to gravity and to hands. He did not weigh much, but he weighed enough to be real. Valentina held him with both hands, surprised that reality could fit into her body without hurting it. The contact demanded no penance. That detail—no one shouted, no one snatched, no one said "careful" as a threat—awakened an innocence she thought dead and yet had remained buried like a sleeping coal. Her fingers little by little stopped trembling. The world, for an instant, had a texture that did not imply pain.

Selena did not miss that fissure in time. She entered the center of the scene as the precise blade enters that cuts where it must cut. Her face did not negotiate; her voice, neither. She did not speak louder than anyone. She did not need to.

—First the immediate —she said—. Valentina needs what is hers. Her own. Clothes that fit her body and not someone else's idea, shoes that do not tear her skin, a suitcase that does not carry memories of garbage. Not borrowed, not patched. Hers. That today.

She paused briefly, not to dramatize, but to change scalpels.

—And the legal. Without papers, all this becomes a problem in two weeks. I'll talk with the biological mother. Transfer of rights, documents in order, without scenes or shouting. The correct words, at the correct table, with the signatures where they must go. I will not allow an administrative omission to steal from us what already cost blood. Sebastián, this falls within what we agreed: I remain a partner with you and with Helena. In the company and in the plan. This too is my front of work.

There was no gesture of pride nor of false humility. She said, and it remained said. Helena barely nodded, like one who sets a screw in the exact point and feels the piece stop vibrating. Sebastián held Selena's eyes for a moment: he did not thank with words; he accepted with the serene weight of his shoulders, with the coat that no longer creaked, with the silence of one who will sustain what is promised. Virka did not speak; her body said what was necessary: contained alert, iron without display, readiness.

Valentina, with Narka settled in her hands like a warm certainty, swallowed. The words "shopping," "papers," and "house" were, in her old language, traps. Here they sounded like steps of a stair someone had placed to climb, not to push her down. The novelty hurt from its strangeness. She did not avert her gaze. Selena looked at her then without condescending, without diminishing her, without translating the world into diminutives. When she spoke, she did so as one speaks to an equal who still lacks practice:

—There are two options for today. We can go first to the mansion so you know where you will sleep and wake. Or we can go shopping so you begin to have your own things. You will decide.

The phrase fell like hot iron in cold water: it hissed in the girl's memory, left steam and a new circle. She had never chosen. Choosing had always been a staging by others: the question came with an assigned answer and attached punishment. Now no one tensed their shoulders waiting for her to say the wrong word. No one clenched their teeth. No one raised a hand. Freedom did not arrive as an open door, but as a key that was suddenly in her pocket.

Virka turned her face slightly, just enough for her red eyes to meet the girl's. There was no sweetness in that gaze—never—but there was a promise that living beings understand without dictionary: to walk beside. Sebastián, a step away, with his calm gravitation, held the edge of the room like a wall that never betrays. Helena, pragmatic, awaited the answer as one awaits a signal in an operating room: not with anxiety, but with precision. Selena, still, kept the designed route in her head and would hand it to whichever steering wheel was needed. The question was not decorum. It was real.

Valentina lowered her gaze to Narka. The shell, rough, left its exact weight on the small skin of her palms. It did not ask. It did not judge. It only was. The claw touched the back of her fingers with a precision that was more counsel than caress. The voice came out with that depth that competes with nothing, a metal without edge that, even so, cuts at the exact point:

—Enjoy this moment. Knowing your home is putting down roots. Begin with the ground that will sustain your name.

The girl listened. Not every day did the world speak to her without trick. She felt like crying and laughing at the same time; the body chose to breathe. She raised her chin with a courage made of nothing visible, just a movement that straightens an invisible line at the nape. Her eyes passed from Narka to the four faces that waited for her without hurry. She sanded down her fear until it became a tool.

—I want to go to the mansion first —she said.

She did not plead. She did not apologize for asking. She did not seek the gesture that authorizes. She said. The sound settled on the floor like a piece that finally fits.

No one corrected. No one made a list of objections. No one improved the phrase. Only the air changed: it stopped being the air of a war room and became the air of a map. In Helena's gaze passed—quickly—the satisfaction of one who confirms that the body remembers the route when entrusted. Selena inclined her head a millimeter, a signal that in her was equivalent to a seal. Sebastián released the air he had been holding since before the threshold and his breathing became broad, useful. Virka did not smile: she settled a "good" without words, with the exact weight of her neck.

Valentina could not name it, but she felt it: for the first time, the decision had chosen her as well. It was not a loan nor a trap nor a test. It was hers. No one tore it from her hands.

The moment was recorded with the discretion of true things. There were no applause. There were no promises of happiness. There were no proclamations. Only the shift of axis: the world stopped turning on the whim of others and began to turn—still slow, still crude—around that sentence that weighed like a new stone. Valentina held Narka a little longer, like someone anchoring a word so the outside noise wouldn't carry it away. Her fingers no longer trembled. The room, which smelled of bleach and clean fabric, learned to smell also of decision. In that strange, sober, dark mixture, a destiny began to take shape. Not luminous. Not kind. Her own.

Selena moved first. She added no drama: she placed the phone in her palm like an instrument whose edge she already knew. She dialed without looking, waited for a tone and spoke quietly, with phrases that sounded like bolts tightening into place. The word "van" did not appear; its function did: large vehicle, privacy verified, windows that do not return stories, capacity for everyone, arrival via the service entrance. She hung up. Her hand returned to her pocket. No solemnities. Just work.

—Remove the covers that will not be used —she said toward the hallway, where the staff knew how to listen when her voice chose to come out—. And Sebastián's old clothes, to the discard bag. Silent registry, no onlookers.

Helena barely lifted her chin; the gesture meant "now." She moved forward beside Selena, a half step ahead when the weight required muscle, a half step behind when the weight required judgment. The door accepted the card with its impassive beep. It closed. The room became intimate: Sebastián, Virka, Narka and Valentina remained. Four presences that were not yet called family, but that already organized themselves as if they knew how.

The new coat rested on Sebastián's shoulders without display. He measured the air with a broader breath. He did not speak. He let the stillness make space in the center of the room. Narka, heavy just enough, breathed in the girl's hands like a stone that knew how to count beats. Virka tilted her skull; her red eyes did not claim, they confirmed.

It was Virka who saw the fabric cover, short, with the zipper stopped two fingers from the top. She advanced without wasting energy, with that precision of a beast that learned to move without creating disorder. She held the cover in the air so the white ceiling light would not mention reflections. She turned her head toward Valentina.

—It's yours —she said—. You have the right to wear it.

Valentina did not touch it immediately. The phrase "you have the right" was new in her body; she searched for a place to nest it. She lowered her gaze to the folded edge of the cover, dark against dark. Her mouth, used to apologizing even before speaking, moved ahead by reflex.

—And if… I ruin it? —the word scraped her throat, sounded like a thread—. If I break it by accident.

Sebastián found his voice where beams usually live.

—If it breaks, there will be another. And if it breaks again, there will be another one more. You will not be left with nothing again.

He did not explain, he did not adorn. He left the phrase on the floor, heavy and useful, like a brick that no longer moves.

The being in the girl's hands—ancient and small—tilted its head, measured the pulse in Valentina's fingers, and with a tiny claw, touched twice the back of her hand. The voice came from that depth that does not need echo.

—The moments that build you do not wait —it said—. Accept.

Valentina swallowed. The blush rose like slow water along her cheeks. She lifted her gaze and held, at last, the eyes of Virka and Sebastián. The world held with her.

—Thank you —she said first, like one learning the exact shape of a key.

And then, pushing with modesty a door too heavy for her size:

—Thank you, Dad… thank you, Mom.

Virka crouched without asking permission from reason. She rubbed her cheek against the girl's, a brief and firm touch, a pact-of-beasts gesture. Sebastián passed his fingers through her hair, a short caress that did not seek comfort, but recognition. Narka, ceremonious in his own way, leapt onto Sebastián's shoulder to leave Valentina's and the beast's hands free.

The air did not have time to cool before action. Virka turned the cover toward her own body so the girl could see it without feeling examined, and then occurred what before had been missing in the room's destiny: the discovery.

Her thumb and forefinger found the plastic ring of the zipper. The sound was not a light "zip"; it was a descent of fine rain down a channel: teeth parting with the discipline of a silent army. The fabric of the cover, black, opened like a modest curtain and let a portion of the world in. First appeared a fold of cotton, patiently pressed: a blue line so deep it seemed to drink light. Then, the shoulder of the garment, resting on a simple hanger, revealed its straight seam, regular stitches like the breathing of one who sleeps without nightmares. The muted navy blue did not shine; it absorbed the gleams and returned them in soft shadow. There were no laces, no ribbons, no ornaments begging applause: only a skin of fabric with frank fall.

Virka, with one hand, pulled the front of the cover aside; with the other, held the hanger. The dress showed its full silhouette, slow, as if emerging from a cave without debts. The round collar, neither high nor low, seemed calculated not to strike the collarbone but to shelter it. The sleeves, short, could rest on the arms without betraying them. The body of the garment, straight, promised to obey the shape of the one who would inhabit it without imposing another. The skirt, in continuity with the torso, would fall just above the knees, enough to run if needed, enough to be if at last she could be. The hem had a wide fold, stitched with invisible thread: detail of careful workshop, not luxury. The fabric, under the clinic's white fire, let out a faint whisper, as if it contained a distant folded sea.

Valentina stared without blinking. The blue seeped into her eyes, settled in her mouth. It was not sky blue, nor Caribbean sea, nor flag blue. It was a blue that recalls the night among buildings, the water when it does not return faces, the sober ink that signs documents that change life without clamor. For an instant, the girl felt her heart settle with the color. Sweetness—that creature believed dead—poked its head out like a small animal that finds an open hand and not a stick.

—It's… —she searched for a word that would not falsify—. It's beautiful.

Virka did not smile. She nodded gravely.

—Yes.

The beast removed the hanger with a simple twist of her wrist and held the dress outside of the cover so the girl could see it whole, without veil. The cotton yielded with a minimal fold when displaced; it showed that it knew how to obey without faltering. The cover, now empty, hung to one side like mute skin. Virka let it rest on the back of a chair. The dress, against the light, seemed even deeper.

Sebastián observed that exact second in which the inert becomes promise. He had seen it before in other objects—weapons, tools, maps—; here the object was fabric. He said nothing. Sometimes, silence sustains.

—I'm going to help you put it on —Virka said then, with the plainness of one who performs a natural gesture—. I don't want anything to get caught on you.

The beast signaled with her chin toward the rags that still clung to the small body of the girl. Valentina followed the indication with her gaze and instinctively raised her hands to cover herself. It was not the need to hide; it was memory. She lowered them, obeying herself.

—What are you doing, Virka? —her voice came out in that direct manner that between them had already earned its place.

—Removing what is left over —she answered—. Helping you put on what is already yours.

She did not name wounds. She did not name salvations. She did not explain stories. She simply did.

She began with the shoulders: a strip of frayed cloth had curled in the hollow of the neck and tightened more out of habit than force. Virka's fingers, rough but trained not to tear the skin they must protect, slid the fabric upward with patience; they freed it. The sound was a small gasp of the fiber. Then she moved down to the shoulder blades: there, two pieces had stuck together from old dampness; she separated them without violence, with the calm authority of one who has untied worse traps. She continued down the sides: threads that bit like old teeth; she broke them one by one, with her fingertips, until they surrendered. At the waist she removed a strap that had not been strap but tightened cord; it came undone with a dry snap. A dirty thread fell to the floor. Sebastián, without theatricality, picked it up and tossed it into the discard bag that waited open in a corner: plastic that breathed once and nothing more.

Valentina restrained the impulse to ask forgiveness. In her throat, the habit wept; she did not let it pass. She held her gaze on a point of the wall so as not to demand too many things from her body at once. Narka, from Sebastián's shoulder, looked at her unhurriedly: the ancient gaze accompanied the young breathing.

The last strip, near the chest, required more care. There, the skin kept, like a memory that cannot be forgotten even with orders, a small hollow: remnant of the violence that a name—Profane—failed to erase. Virka changed her angle, held the rag with two fingers and removed it without brushing the spot; the fabric opened, accepted the end of its command, and fell with the others. The room became cleaner.

What appeared then was not nakedness as scandal, but clarity. Valentina's hair—white from trauma, with brown strands that looked like rivers stopped—covered her left eye like a twisted curtain; it let light pass, it did not expel it. The right eye, brown, faced the air with a timid strength; the left, light blue, crouched behind the strand, held a beautiful cold, like that of stones polished by centuries of water. Her skin, white, without the tint of illness it once had, now showed its geography without alarms: scrapes like pencil lines, small scars that no longer screamed, faint marks that did not demand compassion. The clavicle was discreetly marked. The arms, thin, announced muscle that would learn. The legs held, without protest. And at the center of the chest, the sunken point, minimal, breathed without the breath complaining.

Virka lifted the dress to pass it over the girl's head.

—Up —she indicated, and Valentina obeyed with that yes that is not servitude but pact.

The edge of the collar touched her forehead first: dense cotton, clinical cold that quickly warmed. It went down over the hair without snagging because the beast had foreseen the path of the strands. The dress covered the eyes for an instant; the world was dark blue inside, a refuge of seconds. The fabric continued, fell over the shoulders softly, embraced the shoulder blades, slid down the chest and passed over the small hollow without hurting it. At the waist, the fall did not tighten: it settled. Over the hips, the fabric accepted the form; down to the knees, it promised freedom and composure.

Virka smoothed the left sleeve with the back of her hand so it would not crease on the bicep; smoothed the right side with her palm, so the line would not lie. She stepped back half a step. She looked. The gaze did not seek beauty, it sought truth. She nodded.

—It fits you —she said.

Valentina lowered her gaze to her hands, to the skirt, to the seam that crossed like a secret river down the side. She closed her fingers, brushed the fabric with her fingertips as if touching the skin of a living animal. The dress responded with a whisper. It asked no price. It offered no promise of joy. It offered belonging.

The girl's face reddened more, and sweetness—that stubborn flower—bloomed despite the shadow that had followed every gesture for years. She lifted her gaze. Sebastián held her with a yes that needed no mouth. Virka, who knew nothing of adornments, raised her chin slightly, dry pride. Narka inclined his head again, satisfied, as if recording the moment in a memory longer than that of all those present.

—Thank you —Valentina repeated, and the word, now clothed, occupied the air better.

Sebastián came close enough to pass his hand, once more, over her shoulder. There was no speech. There was weight of presence. Virka did not repeat the rubbing; with her, gestures are not spent. She simply placed herself at the girl's side, at her height, as one who declares with the body, "from here forward." Narka touched Valentina's forehead with his paw, lightly, three times, and withdrew.

Through the ajar door came a murmur: wheels rolling, voices that did not raise their volume, an engine approaching and regulating its throb. Selena, somewhere in that noise, would already have closed the circuit of boxes and back door; Helena, with her eye that is not deceived by baths of chlorine, would already have signed with the gesture she does not sign with ink. The exit existed.

—When you want —said Sebastián.

Valentina took a step. The dress moved with her in quiet obedience. She took another step, and there was no protest of seams nor promises of future rags. She lifted a hand and brushed aside, for the first time, the brown strand from her left eye without fear of seeing more. The light blue came out into the air, crossed with the brown a bridge her face had not known how to build. The girl breathed. The dress rose and fell, accomplice.

She looked once more at the floor. There was the plastic bag with the old rags, sealed by the weight of her own decision. There, the empty cover waiting to embrace the air again when it was no longer needed. There, the space through which the world had shifted a few centimeters.

—I'm ready —she said, and now the phrase was no longer a permission; it was an announcement.

Virka opened the door with her elbow. Sebastián adjusted on his shoulder the being of living stone. Valentina crossed the threshold in a step that was not large, but was whole. The corridor returned the aseptic smell they already knew, mixed with something new: navy blue cotton that still held store and box, and that was beginning to learn skin.

The room was left behind, ordered like after a rite without priests. No one applauded. No one promised happiness. No one proclaimed. Only bodies breathing together and learning to move without breaking. The core—that name that will take time to pronounce without caution—consolidated one millimeter more: the girl, who had been refuse, walked with her first garment of her own; and the three who flanked her, without uniforms or flags, were already a form of home.

The hallway received them with its straight breath of chlorine and tempered air. The lights, exact, bounced on the edges as if they had been placed never to distract anyone from the urgent. The floor, clean to the point of obstinacy, returned a domesticated reflection of every step. Valentina, in her navy-blue dress, advanced between Sebastián and Virka, with Narka upright on the man's shoulder like an ancient memory that had decided to learn the discipline of hallways. No one stopped them. The gowns and uniforms of the clinic, for the most part, lowered their gaze with that trained politeness that protects from astonishment: eyes slipping beneath lashes, hands pretending to adjust a glove so as not to say "I saw." Silence did its work.

Selena and Helena waited at the mouth of the service exit. They had resolved what was resolvable without the need for noise: covers removed, bags sealed with Sebastián's old clothes, brief signatures so that the clinic's memory would never know how to tell a complete account. The van waited pressed against the loading edge, still, dark glass, space enough for all. It was not a vehicle that wanted to be seen; it was one that knew how to fulfill itself. Selena pointed with her chin; the door opened, and the outside air entered with that smell of street that has no name, mixture of rubber, high light, and impersonal fragrance of midday.

They boarded in order: first Virka, by instinct of protection; then Valentina, sheltered by useful shadows; afterward Sebastián with Narka, and lastly Helena and Selena, who closed without alarm, like closing a book that does not want to lose its page. Inside, the world became a box of synchronized breaths. The wide seats accepted the bodies without betraying them; the mirrored glass, from inside, gifted the city as a theater of which they were no longer actors.

They did not depart immediately. There was one more gesture, simple and definitive. Selena took from a rigid bag a pair of white shoes. They had no shine to call the eye. They were clean, discreet, elastic where they should be, firm where they needed to be. She held them in the air as one holds an instrument that does not yet know the hand of its owner. Helena, beside her, looked at them briefly and nodded. There was no speech; there was precision.

—They're yours —Selena said to the girl, with her measured voice—. Put them on if you want. They will match what you wear.

Valentina received them as one receives a full glass for the first time after much thirst: with both hands, with an incredulity that almost hurts. The white returned to her, for an instant, a brightness that was not light, but space in her eyes. She placed them on her knees with disproportionate care, as if each shoe were a sleeping animal. She bent down, still barefoot, and brought her right foot close. Her toes trembled when they brushed the edge; the clean insole seemed to her a territory that did not demand penance. The shoe accepted the foot. Then the other. The girl adjusted a strap with clumsiness and a barely born laugh—more air than sound—and then straightened her back and looked at Sebastián, as if asking for verdicts already given.

—They fit you —Helena said, dry, but without edge at the rim.

Selena made a minimal closing gesture—correct—and tapped the wall twice to signal the driver. The engine responded with a disciplined purr. The van moved; the clinic was left behind, a white box that no longer needed them.

The journey cut across the city along its invisible seam. The traffic lights were obediences without discussion. At the intersections, life burned with its own exactness: vendors with their baskets, a couple arguing without skin, an old woman embracing a bag as if it were a grandchild, teenagers learning to seem invulnerable before a glass that did not respond. Valentina looked through the window as one watches a sea from the bottom of another water. For the first time in too long, no one looked back at her. The mirrored glass returned her face in faint fragments, without demanding gestures. She touched, with her index finger, the seam of the shoe. The possibility of being shod without pain seemed miraculous to her.

Narka, on Sebastián's shoulder, tilted his head a degree toward the girl. He did not speak. To make silence, sometimes, is to give permission. Virka kept her hands anchored on her thighs, like one who has decided violence will not go out for a walk today. Her red eyes, steady, recorded without dramatics. Sebastián's body, tranquil wall, had grown accustomed in a few hours to being useful shadow and roof. None of them needed to say it.

In that dome of glass and patience, private memories slid through. In Sebastián, the image of a door from another house, long ago, when he was younger and did not yet know which part of the world wanted to bite him. He remembered the hand that took away his fear then, not with pastel tenderness, but with a promise that could be upheld with tools: "As long as I breathe, you will not be left without a roof." That weight had passed, without noise, onto his shoulders. It was not a burden that weighed downward. It was a burden that shored up.

In Virka, another kind of inventory: the smell of the hunt, final hours where the edge resolved, and now, in that same hand that so many times had chosen to break, a different learning: to hold. The girl did not shrink before her presence. That fact, for the beast, was incomprehensible and true. She had a way of accepting her that asked for neither permission nor pardon. That too can be learned.

The city opened, at last, to an avenue that carried it out of itself. The van turned where no one notices. The green shadow of disciplined trees began to push the light inward. The main gate appeared without heroism: tall, secure, discreet in its power. As they approached, two lines of metal separated calmly, recognized the vehicle, and made room. They entered.

The path of dark stone led them toward the body of the mansion. It was not a house: it was a territory. Three stories with windows that returned the world without recounting it, slanted roofs that looked at each other like thoughtful mountains, balconies that drew exact shadows on severe walls. Ordered gardens, fountains without fantasies, honest and silent courtyards. High walls surrounded the compound with that authority that does not need to raise its voice. The van advanced slowly, leaving behind it a wake of muffled noise. Valentina, without realizing it, pressed her shoulder to Sebastián's, as if the scale of things demanded an ally. The navy-blue dress absorbed the light of the place, and the new white shoes seemed like a candid declaration nailed into foreign ground.

The vehicle stopped at the entrance. The sliding door let in air with cool shadow. They descended. Selena took in two phrases the instructions that needed to be given: schedules, people, things that had to be delayed so there would be no unnecessary eyes. Helena went ahead like one who makes sure there are no edges to fall from. Virka and Sebastián formed a wall around the girl without making it seem like a fence. Narka turned his eye to the sky like one taking note of a moral climate.

The double door yielded without effort. The vestibule unfolded in height. Black marble with golden veins underfoot, cold without cruelty; lamps of exact lines in the air, hanging like domesticated constellations; a scale designed so that steps would learn discipline. Valentina stopped upon entering: not from fear of breaking, but from not knowing how to walk without the space telling her she was superfluous. The echo of her shoe—a clean, small strike—surprised her. She lowered her shoulders by reflex and then lifted them again, correcting herself, like one who does not want to appear the shadow of herself.

The eyes made an inventory that the body would take weeks to finish: to the left, the reception hall with its windows onto still gardens; to the right, a corridor that led to rooms without stories yet; ahead, the air of a dining room that exaggerated the distance of a table with the purity of a ruler; beyond, doors that guarded water, warmth, rest. Everything was large without shouting it. And everything, nevertheless, named her as if she were small. The girl swallowed. The blue of the dress held.

—Do you want to see the place? —Sebastián asked at last, in a ready voice, without false solemnity—. You can choose your room.

The girl looked at him. It was only a second, but it was enough for the impossible—choosing—to become a word and not a threat. She nodded. The brown strand on the left brushed her cheek and settled to the rhythm of that gesture.

They walked. First toward the side where interior water is law. The pool, broad, breathed a warmth without smoke. The steam, discreet, blurred the contours and made the walls return a light that was neither soft nor cruel: it was useful. The water, black from the reflection of the ceiling, held the movement of a surface that does not demand perfect bodies, only bodies that arrive. Valentina stopped a meter from the edge, with the certainty of one who does not wish to invade a ceremony. She opened her eyes a little, surprised by the dimension.

—Why is it so big? —she asked, and her voice was respectful, but curious, the creak of a door that had never been opened by her.

Sebastián looked at the deep mirror of the inner basin and said, without postponement:

—Because we didn't want a pretty place. We wanted a true place. Here we can live as we are, without hiding.

The beast added, with that dryness in her that does not wound:

—And to train, sometimes one must breathe here. The body also learns in the water.

—It's more than a house —Sebastián concluded—. It's a fortress. If dangerous times come, this sustains us.

The word fortress did not sound like prison in the man's mouth. It sounded like a place where, if the world once again insisted on biting, there would be a piece that does not yield. Valentina lowered her gaze to the water. She did not see her reflection clearly; the surface disarmed it and put it back together in another way. For the first time, she did not mind not recognizing herself. She liked the possibility of being a new drawing.

They continued outward, along a corridor that let in the murmur of falling water. The outer pond opened like a quiet page. The artificial waterfall combed the surface with a script the sun learned by heart. There were rocks placed to appear natural and a border where the grass allowed itself to be cut without complaint. The girl leaned, with caution, over the moving mirror. The white strand and the brown ones, over the blue of the dress, made a contrast that almost made her laugh. She raised her gaze, and then dared the question that had circled her since the van:

—What… dangerous situations?

She was not seeking a tale. She was seeking a compass. Sebastián took a heartbeat longer than usual to answer, like one deciding how much weight to place on the tray of a child who had been denied food and now can finally eat.

—The world does not always stay still —he said—. Sometimes it comes to take what does not belong to it. Sometimes it remembers old debts with the blade. Here, when that happens, we will not run away.

The beast added no threat; she did not know how to embellish. She only nodded slightly. That way of affirming is also a promise.

Valentina lowered her head, the blush rising to the edge of her ears. She did not press further. She did something else: she whispered, almost to herself, with that mix of shame and firmness of one who wants to be up to the task without knowing how:

—I… want to learn to be here.

Narka looked at her from Sebastián's shoulder with that eye that contains ages, and in sole reply lowered his head until he was at her height, as if to say that beginnings also have a correct size.

They returned to the shade. The bathing area received them with its educated warmth. The steam wrapped the stone; the benches seemed made so that backs would release their inner soldiers. Valentina entered slowly, as if she did not know whether that kind of rest was deserved or learned. Her skin demanded a little air from the dress; the dress obeyed, as a second skin should. Her cheeks flushed, not only from the heat. She looked around at the spouts, the faucets, the possible bodies that someday would cross these waters. And she asked, with that timidity that was already becoming insistent:

—Also… here? Is it only for you?

—For us and for those who walk with us —the beast replied—. Here we train, we rest, we heal. If the body does not learn to fall, it does not learn to rise.

It was not sweetness. It was truth. Valentina did not hide her tiny smile. Knowing that rest could also be a place for training seemed to her a strange and just idea.

They returned to the spine of the house. Sebastián guided her—without pushing—through hallways that smelled of sober wood and air that had been thought out. The stairs did not make themselves arrogant; they ascended like a decision is ascended. They passed through corridors with doors that did not yet have stories. The girl looked without trying to touch. At every turn, the magnitude of the mansion insisted on its lesson: the great is not a shout, it is a horizon.

—You can choose —he repeated, when they reached a row of rooms where the light entered differently in each one—. Whichever you want.

The girl stopped at the first one, peeked her head in, and stepped back: too much sun. In the second, she liked the air in shadow, but the angle of the window seemed severe to her. In the third, an oak—whose branches opened and closed patches of light at the whim of the wind—wrote a choreography on the floor. The heart, without knowing, chose there. She did not say "this one." She said:

—Here… I breathe better.

Sebastián did not translate. Virka, from the threshold, registered the orientation of the wind. Narka decided that that doorframe knew something he had already forgotten. Inside, the room waited without deceptions: firm bed, available wall, a window with the depth of a bench, wardrobe that did not weigh upon anyone, a nearby bathroom with the murmur of clean pipe. Valentina advanced to the glass. She did not see city; she saw trees, some sky, a piece of garden with its exact shape of green. She laid her palm on the sill, as if touching the body of an immense animal that had decided to stay still. She turned her face without removing her hand.

—I want… —the phrase stumbled, but arrived—. I want to belong here.

It was not a shout. It was not a promise: it was a desire that for the first time did not return a hollow echo. The word remained in the air and did not fall. The room made her a place where she could settle.

Sebastián did not say "of course." He walked two steps, reached out his hand, and touched her shoulder—with the back of his hand, so as not to frighten. Virka approached from the other side, noiseless, and settled a "good" that needed no syllables. Narka lowered his head until the girl's forehead was a breath from his shell, and gave her a small tap with his paw, a tiny and ancient blessing.

The corridor, behind, continued to exist. The mansion, with its courtyards, its waters, its shadows, breathed as breathe the places that have known how to wait. Outside, the gardens demanded nothing. Inside, the echo of the girl's steps, clothed and shod for the first time with her own things, measured the immensity with a small and personal compass.

They went down again, not to undo the path, but to understand it. They crossed the vestibule once more. The light, at that hour, had withdrawn a little; the golden veins of the floor looked like solidified rivers that invite you to cross without getting wet. The girl, now, did not stop at the center. She crossed it. The dress moved with her in silence. The white shoes stepped on the marble with a contained confidence that, nevertheless, no longer asked forgiveness. When they reached the edge where the air hardens toward the main hall, Sebastián bent just enough and said:

—Today we eat here and afterward you rest. Tomorrow I'll show you the rest.

The beast added, from her edge of the world:

—And tomorrow we'll try other things: walking the garden without fear, listening to the house at night, learning where it doesn't hurt.

The girl breathed and allowed herself a gesture of minimal daring: she raised her hand and touched, with her index finger, one of the golden veins of the floor, as if that frozen river could transmit to her the memory of the mansion through her fingertip. She did not feel history; she felt cold. It was enough.

She turned toward the three. There was a second in which, despite the immeasurable size of the place, everything was reduced to that simple geometry: a man, the beast, an ancient creature, and a girl who had just chosen. At the center, a decision with new shoes. There were no applauses. There were no promises. There were no proclamations. There was something more difficult: belonging a little more than one had belonged a minute before. And that little— in certain lives— is an entire province.

—I want to learn everything —she said, with the voice that remained to her after surviving.

—Then begin —Sebastián replied.

And they began. With small steps that did not offend the marble, with silences that did not require translation, with timid questions that, for the first time, were not moves against her but keys. Outside, the afternoon turned the corner of the gardens and left the house in its own shadow. Inside, the shadow ceased to be a threat and became form. The mansion—fortress, refuge, map yet to be written—closed its doors with the naturalness of places that have decided to admit one more destiny. And that destiny, though not luminous nor kind, had—at last—the exact size of the girl who walked slowly, holding with her hand the edge of her navy-blue dress, while the new white of her shoes found memory in each stone.

Sebastián paused for an instant to watch that small silhouette advance alongside Virka, with Narka settling like a tiny shadow near his arm. He did not interrupt. That was their time, the time of the girl testing the earth of the garden, the air of the corridors, the new echo of a home that did not yet know how to pronounce itself as such.

—I want you to walk through the gardens —he said finally, his voice graver from restraint than from volume—. This place is yours too, Valentina.

The girl barely raised her gaze. The open garden spread before her in a horizon of grass and stone; the fountains murmured in the distance. The white shoes, newborn from their box, sank a little into the soft earth as they left the marble. Valentina hesitated a second, and Virka, the beast at her side, tilted her head as one who confirms there will be no stumble.

—Why don't you come with us? —Virka asked, her tone dry, without reproach.

Sebastián held her gaze.

—Because this moment is more for you. I have to speak with Helena and Selena outside. There are things to close.

The word close lingered in the air like hot iron. Valentina felt it, though she did not fully understand its weight. Then Sebastián added, with a sincerity that left no gaps:

—And I must advance in cultivation.

The girl furrowed her brow a little, as if the word seemed strange to her.

—Cultivate? —she asked softly, almost afraid she would be scolded for being curious.

He lowered his gaze toward her, firm but gentle.

—It's something we do to become stronger. I'll explain it to you calmly later. Now explore. Don't be afraid.

Sebastián's hand rested for a second on her shoulder, a gesture that sought neither authority nor tenderness, but simple presence. Narka, from Sebastián's shoulder, leaned down toward the girl, touching her wrist lightly with his paw: a ceremonial, ancient gesture. Valentina nodded with seriousness, like one who accepts a mandate she does not understand but intuits.

Then Sebastián turned and crossed the hallway. His steps carried him to the main entrance of the mansion, where the air opened to the portico. There Helena and Selena awaited him, the one with the medical calm that evaluates without embellishments, the other with the device in her hand, logistics incarnate.

The silence of the threshold broke with his voice.

—I want to resolve something now. Can Valentina be with us at the institute? I don't want her to be far. And I need Virka to be able to see her even when we are in operations.

Helena tilted her head slightly, her clear eyes shining with that clinical judgment that seeks not comfort but exactness.

—Yes. The institute allows exceptions for minors. It has primary school and the upper levels on the same campus. With the proper approval, she can be admitted.

The air tensed, as if the weight of a certainty had fallen among them. Helena continued:

—Valentina is five years old now. She will turn six in September. That means she would enter primary, at the first level. The institute is not only a space for cultivation: it also educates from the base. It is a tiered structure.

She paused. Her eyes passed over Sebastián, then to the hallway where Virka's shadow could still be seen.

—And you —she added, with precise voice— will enter at sixteen into the second level of secondary.

Sebastián nodded, grave. The pieces were falling into place.

But Helena softened nothing:

—However, there are risks. While the cleansing operation at the institute continues, any minor within the campus could inadvertently be exposed. It is not only about study. It is about a space where interests converge, and where enemies still watch.

—We will not infiltrate adults near her —Sebastián responded firmly—. That would draw attention. It would break any cover.

There was a brief silence, as if everyone measured the crack. Then he added:

—The best option is Narka. He can make himself even smaller, go unnoticed, and stay with her. He is wise, and she will not feel alone.

Helena sighed slowly, not with resignation, but with calculation.

—It is possible. More viable than any other.

Selena, with her dry tone of steel, concluded:

—It breaks common sense, yes. But common sense is not what sustains security. Narka does not awaken suspicion. And as long as no one sees him, he is the strongest guard she can have.

The conversation turned toward the inevitable: education. Selena spoke first, with icy realism:

—With the life she has had, Valentina will not arrive with the foundation other children her age have. Reading, writing, simple operations. Her five years are not like those of a normal child.

Sebastián lowered his gaze for an instant, remembering something he did not say aloud.

—It is the same that happened to me and to Virka. I stopped studying at that age. What I know of school is a blurry memory. We need to level.

He raised his gaze toward Helena and Selena.

—In the time that remains, will we be able to prepare her so she does not get lost? I do not ask that she be ahead. Only that she not sink.

Helena took the word, with the calm of one who dissects possibilities:

—It can be done. It will be a fast process, but if we structure it well, she will reach what is necessary. I will make a plan. Initial diagnosis in the mansion, without exposing her. Basic materials: reading books, lined notebooks, exercises of numbers, colors, shapes. Short routines, several times a day, always interspersed with rest. No excessive pressures. And I myself will supervise her physical and emotional state.

Selena nodded, adding her logistical precision:

—Tutors. Not just any tutor: discreet profiles, accustomed to working with atypical cases. They will come here, adjust according to her level. If they don't work, they are replaced. We are not going to improvise with this.

Sebastián breathed deeply.

—Do it. If it gives her a place, if it takes away fear, then I want that.

Selena noted something on the device.

—We will also regularize her papers. Documents, custody. With that, enrollment is formal. No one will be able to dispute it.

Helena completed with a slight nod:

—I will take charge of monitoring her health. If anything changes, we pause.

The plan was laid out. The tension did not dissolve, but it was ordered into straight lines.

Sebastián lifted his gaze toward the mansion. In the distance, in the gardens, he could see Valentina timidly crouching to touch a leaf, while Virka watched her from the shade and Narka gave her a brief tap on the wrist.

The scene closed on its own. The core was there: girl, beast, guardian. And the man who had to ensure that the world would not break them again.

—Now she can begin to learn without hiding —Sebastián said to himself, in a murmur that needed no reply—. The rest… cultivation, cleansing, will align around that.

He lingered a second with his eyes on the line where the garden began to turn into shadow, as if the world needed that edge to remember its size. It was not a gesture of doubt; it was an adjustment of pulse. Then he turned his face toward the entrance, where Helena and Selena waited without theatricality, one with the clinical serenity of one who measures before closing, the other with the economy of one who only keeps what is useful. There was no haste in either of them, and that absence of haste reminded Sebastián that the decision was already made: now it was time to arrange the rest.

He approached. He made no sound; the floor of the mansion did not either. When he stopped before them, he let the air finish settling. Then he spoke, without detours and without asking permission from the silence:

—I want to resolve what comes next —he said—. Today there will be no formalities. I want the rest of the day with Valentina, without interruptions, without calls that return her to the noise. I want to be with her, to listen to her even if she doesn't know what to say, to learn her pace. Tomorrow I will take her shopping myself, without third parties. As my mother did with me: choosing together, not by catalog nor by obligation. I don't need help for that. I will do it myself.

The words had no shine; they had weight. They were a smooth stone placed in the right spot. The mansion did not respond, but the portico seemed to accept that this piece of reality was now fixed.

Helena did not change her posture, she merely allowed one muscle—only one, discreet, at the corner of her mouth—to make the smallest movement. It was not condescension nor soft surprise; it was the exact notation of something she did not expect to see at that moment and which, nonetheless, fit with a precision that disarmed cynicism.

—I would not have guessed it —she said, with a clear voice and without embellishment—. Not in such a natural way and here. But I welcome it. It is the right way to begin.

Selena did not look at the screen she held in her hand. She looked at Sebastián with that functional coldness that allowed her, when necessary, to cut, weld, or simply discard. Her eyes were not hostile: they were tools.

—It still draws my attention —she said, without raising her voice— that you still keep human roots, and not out of habit, but by decision. With what you can do; with what you already are. It is not seen every day.

Sebastián did not lower his gaze nor shift the axis of his body. If something pierced him, it remained inside, like a needle that does not lose its thread.

—I will not forget where I came from —he replied, slowly, gravely—. Even if I become a more efficient monster, even if the body ends up obeying other laws, the foundation is the same. My mother did not teach me a ritual, she left me a way of being. We chose together, and in that gesture there was something I still cannot name, but which sustains. I want Valentina to have it. Not as a relic. As ground.

Nothing more. No phrase to wrap it up, no intention to convince someone who had already understood. The silence admitted the declaration and did not demand interest. The garden, behind, continued its task of making itself shadow with discipline; the air had that late-afternoon tone that does not rush, it only signals.

It was Selena who, with the punctuality of her trade, turned her body a degree toward the interior of the house, as if the walls responded to that inclination with a list unfolding.

—Then let me make one thing clear —she said—. Valentina is a five-year-old girl. This house maintains stable temperature, but it is not an incubator of miracles. She needs to sleep well tonight, not only to be safe. A body like that, if it does not rest, drags ghosts that do not serve us. Do you want us to prepare a solution right now?

—Yes —Sebastián replied—. Here. Today. I prefer that she have her own place before the evening fully falls. Tomorrow will be the rest.

Helena made a slight gesture with her head, the kind of nod that carries with it an already formed plan.

—We will send a portable bed —she said—: base, mattress, sheets, blanket, the basics. Nothing invasive. It installs in a minute and does not disrupt the space. It will be in her room. I promise no miracles; I promise sufficient rest. And I will personally ensure it is ready.

—Good.

Selena did not go into details, did not offer an inventory, did not ask about decorations or absurd preferences. She kept to the straight line.

—And as for the rest —she continued—, we leave right now. Papers must be moved for legal regularization, the age exception for the institute prepared, tutor selection begun, routes secured. If everything is placed on its track tonight, tomorrow no one will force us to improvise.

Helena added what was missing, with the tone of one who does not lose sight of the essential:

—We will send you confirmations. I will speak with the administration about academics: primary inside the campus, authorization by age, entry conditioned on stable health. Selena will handle the legal side; there will be no noise. And the tutors… I will bring two profiles tomorrow for trial at the house. If they don't fit, they go.

—Perfect —said Sebastián—. Nothing more is needed.

He did not insist on accompanying them to the car, did not seek a ceremonial closure. They knew how to leave without pulling on the thread. Even so, his body demanded that he look for a moment toward the line where the path opened. He followed them with his eyes as they crossed the portico. Neither of the two turned back. It was not coldness; it was method. They got into the vehicle with the same austerity with which they had arrived. The door closed without scandal. The engine started with the obedience of the inevitable. They began to move away.

Sebastián thought of nothing other than the purpose they had just agreed upon. He did not recall names, did not call anyone back, did not allow himself the temptation of adding an instruction to what had already been said. It was enough. From the staircase, he watched how the automobile traveled the stretch of stone, how the outline of the vehicle melted into the dusk that was beginning to take possession of the edges. The sky was neither red nor violet nor golden: it was a sober, clean descent that made the end of the day a line without noise. When the car disappeared behind the curve, he allowed himself to release the air with the exact measure of one who no longer has to hold it between his teeth.

Then, without adding any other word, he turned on himself and looked back toward the house. He did not seek Valentina anxiously. He knew where she was—in some place in the garden, with her white shoes learning the sizes of the world—and he knew what he would do: let that learning continue, without interfering, without replacing it with another grammar. What followed was simple and unyielding at once: the rest of the day would be theirs; the next day, theirs together in front of a counter, choosing without hurry and without witnesses. Nothing more. Nothing less. And in that exactness, the world, for an instant, seemed to accept the form he asked of it.

He returned inside through a side corridor, where the air was stiller, as if the house understood the need not to add unnecessary words. The floor returned a polite shine, and the light, no longer midday nor yet night, traveled in slanted bands that seemed measured on an invisible ruler. Sebastián advanced without touching the walls; the mansion knew him, though it did not yet say it aloud. He turned right, opened a glass door that led to the side patio, and, with the shadow falling across his shoulders, went out into the garden.

Valentina was there, seated on the edge of a low fountain, heels hanging, knees together, hands intertwined. She looked at the sheet of water as though it were a mirror that returned not an image but instructions. The navy-blue dress lay around her legs with simple obedience; the white shoes, suspended in the air, drew a minimal sway that marked the rhythm of her breathing. Virka stood behind her, neither above nor far: a precise step. Narka occupied the beast's shoulder with that order of creature that understands its weight is part of an agreement.

Sebastián stopped two meters away. He did not announce his presence. He let the reflection of his figure in the water give him away. The girl raised her gaze; she looked at him without surprise, without guilt, without that urgency to ask permission that had governed her life until a few hours ago. He inclined his head in a silent affirmation —yes, continue, we are here— and the world had no need of more.

They crossed together the edge of the patio, walking along the path of dark stone that led once more to the interior. On the way, Valentina touched things: the trunk of a young tree, smooth like a bone not yet used; the edge of a window, cold; the corner of a bench; a doorknob. The tips of her fingers were instruments newly recovered. From time to time she lifted her face and traced with her gaze the profile of the house: balconies that leaned out without threatening, walls that did not lie about their weight, windows through which the light entered without demanding occupation. The mansion did not try to please her; it let itself be read. And that, for a girl accustomed to places that demanded debt in advance, was a new form of tenderness.

Sebastián led her to a side room he preferred for its honesty: not the largest, not the most ornate, but with tall windows and a sufficient table. There was, upon a tray, freshly cut bread, whole fruit, and water. It was not a banquet; it was a way of saying "body first." The girl remained one step from the edge, as if the act of approaching implied crossing a boundary she still could not measure. Virka passed beside her naturally, without invading, and leaned against the wall with her weight on the soles of her feet, ready to be barrier or to be nothing if not required. Narka leapt from the beast's shoulder to the back of a chair and from there tilted his head, scrutinizing Valentina with that eye in which time slackens.

—Take —said Sebastián, in a low voice, and moved the tray to the edge of the table so that the distance shortened on its own—. There is no hurry. It is your plate as long as your hands hold it.

The girl did not ask "really?" That phrase did not appear, that test did not appear. She simply extended her hand, took a piece of bread, brought it to her mouth and bit. She did it cautiously, with the old memory that too large a gesture could have consequences. When she confirmed that nothing fell away nor was withdrawn, the next bite was more frank. The bread tasted like bread. She chewed and swallowed with her eyes slightly narrowed, as if shielding from the light the intimate act of eating again without hostile surveillance. Then she chose an apple. She did not ask for it to be peeled. She held it with both hands, took a small bite first, then another a little larger, and finally the rhythm found itself. The juice left a shine at the corner of her mouth. She did not wipe it; she let it be.

Sebastián observed without looking as a judge. What he did with his body was a vow: to remain present without colonizing the moment. He could hear how the atmosphere changed its density as the girl repeated the gesture of the bite. He could hear how Virka, from the wall, kept her alert at a lower frequency, like a heartbeat that no longer needed the urgency of open field. He could hear—by habit, by trade—the slight scrape of Narka moving a paw and placing himself a centimeter further to the right, an infinitesimal gesture that nevertheless corrected the entire flank of the world.

After the bread and fruit, he offered water. The jug weighed enough for the girl's wrist to feel it and begin to translate. The glass filled with a small sound that, in that room, seemed ceremony. Valentina drank without noise. Once, twice. Halfway through the glass, she stopped. She looked out the window: the afternoon had lost its edge, and was beginning to be one layer upon another, like fabrics folded one over the other. The garden outside remained; that was already novelty. No one would remove it on a whim.

—If you get tired, you sit —said Sebastián—. If not, you walk and tell me when the body says "enough."

The girl nodded with a seriousness that spoke of an old hunger for clear instructions. And she walked. A circle first around the table, like animals that test a territory without sinking tooth or claw. Then, the edge of the room: the corner, the doorframe, the baseboard. She touched with a kind of piety; as if each thing carried a pain she did not want to awaken. After a few minutes, fatigue began to show: slight nods of the head, deeper breaths to steal air from tiredness, a hand reaching for the back of a chair too soon.

Sebastián did not say "enough." He said, with exactness:

—Not much longer. They are already coming with what we need.

The phrase found a place in the girl. She did not rest yet, but she no longer fought against an invisible enemy. She allowed herself to sit. The chair was a size too big for her, like almost everything in that house. She laid her forearms on the table and rested her cheek on one of them. She did not sleep; she folded into herself.

Virka stepped away from the wall with perfect economy. She sat beside her and, without asking, lent her shoulder. Valentina accepted that support with a naturalness that surprised her own self. She let the weight of her head find that hollow where it could rest. Narka, on the back of the adjacent chair, inclined his head forward and tapped the wood with a paw, twice, with a rhythm that —so ancient— seemed new. Sebastián, seeing it, noticed that the air of the room was changing: the lamp still unlit, the outside light cutting the floor at soft angles, the immobile objects that seemed, in their way, to be waiting just as they were. The waiting was not emptiness; it was a container.

Time passed with a rare honesty. It had no sound of a clock; it was measured by Valentina's eyelids, falling and lifting ever closer to the ground; it was measured by the beast's shoulders, loosening imperceptibly, as if accepting that, for now, the edge would not be needed; it was measured by Sebastián's fingers, which did not drum on the table, which did not hurry, which did not ask for a signal because the signal had already been given. Outside, the sky began to spend its colors without ostentation: it was not theater, it was craft.

When at last the sound arrived —wheels on stone, discreet engine, doors opening without theatrics— the room already knew it. Sebastián stood; Virka too; Valentina straightened her back with a small start, wiping, with the back of her hand, the damp mark her cheek had left on the skin of her arm. In the hallway appeared Helena, followed by two workers carrying rectangular boxes. They were not huge, they were not small: the exact measure of what was to become a bed. Behind, a thinner bag: the lamp, perhaps; or sheets; or something that did not demand a name.

—Upstairs —said Helena, and her voice did not order with harshness: it guided.

Sebastián cleared the way for them. They climbed the main staircase; the steps did not complain. Valentina, upon reaching the first landing, looked down as though the world, seen from that angle, were a bird that would not land upon her. They continued, and reached the hallway where the chosen room awaited. The door was ajar. Inside, the air waited like a tame animal.

—Here —indicated Helena, and the workers entered, set the boxes on the floor, opened them with hands that knew how not to stumble against edges.

Sebastián placed himself so he could see both the procedure and Valentina's face. He wanted to keep the image: the girl standing, the dress falling straight, hands joined at stomach height, eyes open. Not open with fright; open with incredulity.

The assembly happened in order: first the base, unfolding over itself like an insect awakening without alarm; then the mattress, which one of the men gave air with an expert gesture and which took its shape without noise; afterwards the sheets, white without promises, spread with palms that smoothed but did not violate; the blanket, folded at the foot, waiting for instructions; two pillows that, when laid down, granted the room a kind of soft courage. On the nightstand, Helena placed the lamp and turned it on. It was not a light that played tricks: a small, warm light, enough to say "we are not going to push you into darkness all at once."

—Like this —she said, and with her fingers tested the height of the pillow, the firmness of the edge, the response of the mattress—. If at midnight her breathing changes, we adjust. If the blanket is too heavy, it is removed. Nothing is definitive on the first day.

The workers stepped back. They did not wait for applause. One picked up the empty boxes, the other folded the plastics with that discipline of one who understands that residue is also a form of language. Helena indicated the exit with her head. They obeyed, and the room recovered its real size.

Valentina did not advance immediately. She watched. The bed seemed, to her, a neutral creature awaiting the first pact. She approached, at last, with small steps. She extended her hand and brushed the sheet. It was a quick, timid brush, like the gesture of one who touches water before daring to cross it. Then she laid her whole palm down and slid it across a strip. The fabric did not refuse. At the edge, she stopped the movement, lifted her hand again, and this time let her fingertips trace a curve. She smiled without showing teeth. She breathed. She did not cry. The emotion, in her, was a kind of animal trained not to draw attention. But it was there.

Sebastián stepped forward until he was at her side. He did not say "it's yours" as one who performs a ceremony. He said, with the sobriety she needed to hear:

—It is here for you.

The girl nodded. With the other hand she touched the blanket. She lifted it a little and set it back down. It was the right weight. Not too much. She understood it without theory.

—Thank you —she said, in a very low voice—.

The word sounded as if it bumped against the walls and sat upon them to rest. Virka, from the doorway, tilted her head by a degree. Narka, on the window frame, shifted position to better supervise the corner of the bed and the exit to the bathroom. Each one took their post as though an ancient choreography had been rehearsed without rehearsal.

Helena, beside the lamp, noted something in memory that required no paper. She looked at Sebastián with that manner of hers that was a declaration: brief, useful.

—If something wakes her, don't ask why —she said—. Leave water. Don't cover her as punishment nor as reward. Observe. And if the body asks for silence, give it. Tomorrow we fine-tune everything else.

He inclined his head.

—All right.

—We're leaving —she added, already turning toward the exit—. There are pending matters to move, which will not wait.

certainty of one who knows that her role, tonight, was to step aside. From the hallway, the sound of the vehicle that had brought her returned to construct its small story. Sebastián accompanied them to the door of the room; no further. He did not leave the threshold until he no longer heard their footsteps.

Then he looked at the bed again. Valentina stood beside it, no longer with her hands clasped, with her arms loose, as if at last they had found where to fall without harm. The lamp's light cast a discreet halo on her profile. The room, which before had been a container, was now a place. The difference could be felt.

—It's a little while until night —he said, with a gravity that did not weigh—. If you want, we can return to the hall. I promised you there would be no hurry.

The girl nodded, but remained looking at everything: the corner, the nightstand, the floor, the window. She repeated with her eyes that silent inventory made by those who have slept too long where they did not belong. Then she placed the palm of her hand on the edge of the mattress, as if sealing an agreement with matter. Only then did she move.

They went down together to the hall, following the same path as before but now without the previous trembling. The hallway, in its half-light, seemed to have grown wider, as if the meters had stretched once the bed had been installed in the world. They entered. The tray still preserved, intact, the honesty of the little. Valentina sat again; not from hunger, but from habit of not using the center of the room. Sebastián settled at a distance that neither imposed nor estranged. Virka chose, once more, the wall. Narka slid onto the backrest and rested his chin on the wood.

They did not speak of tomorrow. They did not fill the gaps with promises. They limited themselves to being. The light, on the other side of the glass, completed its descent. The garden became a dark and exact drawing, as if someone had traced it with a pen. The air changed in temperature and in grammar: it was no longer the air of day. The mansion responded by lighting, in some distant place, a lesser lamp. It did not invade the hall. It was not needed.

The girl, still with her white shoes, rubbed the tips of her feet on the floor like one learning the limit with objects. She stroked the edge of the seat with her fingers and then left them in her lap. She lifted her gaze and, for the first time since entering, held Sebastián's eyes for a second longer than usual. In that look was a question that demanded no answer; it only asked that the question be allowed to exist without punishment. He held, too, that second, and returned it intact.

Waiting settled like an animal that does not demand food. It was a waiting with breath. When at last it came—clear, discreet—the murmur of the vehicle departing, when the final sounds of the setup disappeared in the hallway and only the trace of the bed remained as a new certainty in the house, Sebastián knew that the remaining stretch could unfold without tension. He looked at the clock not out of habit, but to confirm that the world obeyed a reasonable cadence. Then he stood.

—Come —he said—. I want you to see it again with the lamp lit. That way you'll know it does not disappear if you close your eyes.

They went up slowly, the echo of their steps measuring the stairs. The room received them with its small light already on. The bed, untouched, seemed even more real now, because no one was observing it as though it had to justify itself. Valentina entered and, this time, did not stop at the door. She walked straight to the edge and placed her hands on the blanket. She did not ask anything. She did not say anything. She just stayed there, breathing.

The house completed its adjustment. There were no curtains moving too much, no pipes knocking, no hum of machines. Sometimes places, just like bodies, know how to fall silent when one thing is in its place. And it was: a bed where before there was air, a girl who could sleep without debt, a man who did not have to keep watch with clenched teeth, a beast who could lower her guard a degree without betrayal, an ancient guardian who needed nothing more than a corner to turn it into a perimeter. The night could come. And it would. For the first time, with a script that did not demand blood.

The day closed there, not with applause, not with speeches about the future: with the simple evidence of a concrete form placed in time. The rest, as Sebastián had said earlier, would align around that. For now, it was enough.

The night entered with its step of an old and certain animal, testing one edge, accepting it, advancing another span. The lamp of the room held a gentle penumbra—gentle without sweetness—enough so that the objects would not become threats and so that sleep, when it came, would find where to sit. Valentina yielded little by little, as a knot of cord swollen by the rain loosens: first a sigh that eased the shoulders, then a blink longer than scrutiny, and finally the surrender without resistance of her weight against the sheet. Her breathing, at first watchful, became a slow cord, tuned by hands that had no hurry.

Virka chose neither chair nor angle of guard: she lay down beside her, embracing her with a care that needs no schooling. Her body—firm, tempered, with the memory of combat engraved in muscle and bone—folded around the new figure, tracing a circle that said without words: no one enters here. Her chin sought the crown of the head and found it; one arm weighed in the right place; the other hand, open, covered the belly with the ancestral gravity of one who protects. It was the tenderness of a beast in its exact sense: warmth, perimeter, instinct that does not ask.

Sebastián took the chair closest to the wall and sat with his profile to the lamp, facing the half-open door. Not to escape, but to deny entry to what should not cross. He closed his eyes inwardly and let cultivation arrange the invisible noises. The Qi traveled with the patience of a scribe over every scar, as though rereading in braille a story without adornment; the body obeyed without drama, polishing edges, settling the strength where the night required it. He did not ask for power: he asked for silence. And from that silence he made a craft.

Narka chose the foot of the bed. His stillness did not imitate any statue: it was the rest of the living that knows how to keep watch without expense. At times he tilted his head by a degree—enough for the perimeter to be redrawn—; at times he closed his eyelids without losing the world. The room, as a whole, breathed with them. The walls learned not to creak. The glass renounced pretending to be a boundary. The house, which by day imposed scale, chose a lower language: that of things that fulfill and remain quiet.

There were no omens nor theatrical shadows. Only a night that, for once, understood its work: to guard. And it did. Valentina's sleep was not a flight; it was a stay. Where before appeared doors that closed too soon, now there was a bare table, a glass of water, the shadow of a hand that did not remove the food when hunger looked. If there was a dream, it was that table. If not, simply rest.

The first light did not enter: it tested the glass like one leaning his back against a foreign wall to measure its height. A strand managed to bend around the corner of the curtain and fell onto the nightstand, advancing millimeter by millimeter until it reached the blanket. The lamp, disciplined, anchored the penumbra one instant longer and then yielded without grief. At that needle's signal, Sebastián opened his eyes like one returning from afar and not needing to ask where he was. Virka breathed deeper, repositioned a sigh, and maintained the circle. Narka, from the edge, stretched the vigilance to the door and brought it back over the feet of the bed. Valentina, then, opened her eyes. She did not startle, did not shrink: she opened leaves. The first glance searched for loss; it did not find it. At the corner of her lips a small brightness was drawn, enough so that the night, already withdrawn, left a signature.

—Good morning —said Sebastián, with a neutral voice that demanded neither smile nor permission.

Virka tilted her forehead and brushed the hair that smelled of sleep, of new fabric, of skin newly freed from shock. Narka merely nodded; in his gesture fit the entire rite of sober beginnings. The light forced nothing. It merely remained.

—Water? —asked Sebastián—. Bath?

The word "bath" perched like a bird on the windowsill. It was not order, it was not exam. It was the next logical step of the world. Valentina nodded. The gesture was not large; it was exact.

They rose. Virka secured her braid with the loving clumsiness of one who knows more of breaking than of tying but strives to learn what is necessary. Sebastián opened the door with a movement that was both passage and protection. Narka crossed first, to cut the hallway's shadow in two, as though darkness had to be divided into manageable sections.

They walked. The mansion, which the day before had seemed a declaration of power, now practiced an unexpected discretion. The moldings did not demand to be read, the corridors did not ask for veneration, the lamps emitted only the sufficient light of useful things. Valentina brushed with her fingertips the edge of a table, the wide frame of a painting still empty, the banister that curved with patience toward the ground floor. She did not touch out of greed: she was taking inventory. Each contact was a minimal inscription in an intimate census: this exists, it admits me, it does not charge me entry.

The inner pool's chamber waited behind a tall door. When opened, a warm breath came out to greet them. Dark stone around, a mirror of water that did not pretend luxury but repose, discreet steam rising like a prayer without a god. The sound was a wide heartbeat: water against water. Narka advanced with an exact step, looked at his reflection for an instant—a long-known one—and descended with a purity that did not break even the edge. The water accepted him.

Sebastián left his new clothes, folded with discipline, on a stone bench. He made no ceremony: precise folds, a towel prepared, things in their place. The body, with its map of scars, became simple topography; it asked for no reading, offered no spectacle. It was the memory of survival translated into skin. Virka, at his side, shed what remained of the dojo's inheritance with a restrained gesture. Her form was no promise: it was fact. The air around seemed to settle, dense, like when the landscape admits the presence of a mountain.

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