“Tonight,” I said, “I wanted us to bring back an old energy. Something primal. Something liminal. Something that reminds us that before the launches, before the notes, before the screenshots, there was mystery.”

She was looking at me as if listening to a man explain the moon to a wolf.

“Go on,” she said.

Bad sign. “Go on” from people like her never means encouragement. It means, I see you digging your own grave.

“Perhaps,” I said, “what the community needed was a return to the feminine threshold. A force that cannot be explained. That holds boundaries. That brings darkness without branding.”