The vision stutters.

The gold coins on the desk begin to reflect something wrong. Not Aldric’s face. Not yours. A child’s face, wide-eyed in the polished metal, watching from somewhere that shouldn’t exist.

Aldric doesn’t notice. He’s still talking, still justifying, still convincing himself that complicity isn’t the same as guilt.

But you see it. The child in the coins. Watching. Remembering.

The gold begins to tarnish. Black spreads across the coins like rot, crawling up the towers, consuming the ingots. Aldric’s voice distorts into a buzzing drone.

The counting house collapses into purple light.