Chapter 16 · Loopbound - Chapter 16: Callum Chooses the Reset

Callum's on the floor of the restricted archive when he comes back to himself. His head's splitting. There's a voice in his skull that isn't his, and it's saying things he doesn't have words for.

*Not words. Coordinates. Vault access. A name he's never heard.*

Vera's kneeling next to him. Her hand's on his shoulder but she's not shaking him anymore. She's just watching.

"How long?" His voice comes out raw.

"Four minutes." She pulls her hand back. "You were saying things. In a language I don't know."

Callum sits up. The archive floor is cold under his palms. The anchor's still on the table behind Vera, but it's dark now. Empty. Whatever his mother was—whatever piece of her Nolan trapped in there twenty years ago—she's not in the stone anymore.

She's in him.

He can feel her. Not like a person. More like a map burned into the back of his brain, all the lines he's not supposed to see. Vault codes. Ward keys. A door under the east wing that doesn't show up on any schematic.

And a warning, in a voice that sounds like his mom but older, colder: *He'll know the moment you move.