[The Silent Threshold — Seventh Space — Day 67 — 4:00 PM]
They returned to the seventh space.
Alex at the center with Grim, the rest distributed. But the seventh space felt different now that they had read the three essential instances. Not more threatening — more real. F7's presence beneath the floor was no longer an abstraction or an echo or a data point from Kira's Predator's Sense. It was something Alex recognized.
And that recognized him.
Grim on Alex's shoulder until they crossed the internal threshold.
Then he climbed down to the seventh space's floor and walked to the center.
The same point as the first time. His hands on the stone floor. His crimson flames oriented downward.
**"The surface record has been read,"** said Grim. **"The Threshold knows it."**
"How does it know?"
