Oliver leaned in, stunned.

Mira didn’t freeze. She didn’t shut down. She didn’t retreat.

Instead, she lifted her sketchbook and showed Caleb her drawing: a small blue bird in flight.

Caleb smiled and said something the camera didn’t catch. Mira hesitated… and then, for the first time in ten years, her lips moved.

A sound came out.

A single, crystal-clear word.
“Hello.”

Oliver’s fork clattered loudly onto his plate.

He replayed the video again and again.
Mira had spoken.
And she had spoken to the one child no one had ever considered.

Oliver jumped up from his chair, questions piling up so fast he could barely breathe. Why this boy? How? What did he offer that no elite expert had managed to understand?