“Does he mean this room?” Evelyn asked.Kael kept his hand away from the letters. The warning remained visible behind the recording strip, lit by power moving beneath the black glass.“We need to find where the power enters,” he replied. “Don't touch the wall.”Evelyn raised her lamp while he followed the faint lines around the shelf. They continued along the floor, turned beneath his feet, and joined a broad panel opposite the stairs. Its surface looked like the rest of the chamber until the light struck it from the side.Small marks covered its border. Several repeated the same arrangement with a different ending, giving each route its own destination.Kael lowered himself onto the bottom step. From there, he could study the entire pattern without leaning on his injured hand.“There are several connections,” he said. “This chamber is one point in a larger system.”Evelyn crouched beside him. “Connections to where?” she asked.“The Nine Realms,” Kael replied. “The places named in the

“Open,” Kael said, pressing his palm against the glass. “Open the route.”The chamber answered his command with a faint light along the panel's edge. He reached for the point Damian had used, but the moment he tried to guide power toward it, pain forced him onto one knee.Thomas caught his shoulder before his head struck the wall.“Stop,” Thomas said. “Tell me what's happening to you.”Kael tried to pull away. The path was closing, and every second spent explaining himself gave Damian more time with Elena.“I can still see where he crossed,” he replied. “If I open it now—”Another attempt sent a sharp tremor through his chest. The little structure he had built inside Ethan's body could no longer hold power evenly. Energy caught along the split, pressing outward instead of moving where he directed it.Thomas lowered himself beside him, keeping one hand against the wall to spare his braced leg.“You couldn't finish that sentence,” he said. “Look at me before you try again.”Kael turned

“Keep your light below the windows,” Evelyn said. “The station is on the other side.”Kael lowered the flashlight. Ahead of him, two Bureau officers moved along the maintenance tunnel toward a steel door. Water covered part of the floor, forcing them against a row of pipes where the passage narrowed.He had stopped trying to walk without a limp. His ankle hurt each time he put weight on it, and a steady ache remained beneath his ribs. The power recovered from the broken warning marks rested inside his damaged core. He left it there.Evelyn raised a hand, and the officers stopped. Through the dirty glass above the door, Kael saw a strip of tiled wall and the edge of an old sign.Then he heard Ethan's voice.“He meant to leave you,” the voice said. “Ask him whether he would have stayed if you hadn't protected him.”Kael's hand tightened around the flashlight.The words carried through an open service vent beside the door. Farther inside the station, someone moved a chair across the floo

Kael turned his shoulder and dropped beside the stairs. Damian's fist passed his chest, but the power around it caught his sleeve and threw him against the bottom step. Stone broke above his head.He pushed himself up before Damian could turn. Across the platform, Elena still clung to the column with her feet held inside the glowing line.“Stay behind him,” Kael told Evelyn. “I'll move him away from her.”Damian's left hand opened. His right foot slid back, and power gathered along the edge of his palm.Kael knew the movement. He had used it to cut through an opponent's defense before following with a close strike. The open hand drew attention while the rear foot prepared the turn.Damian performed every part in the correct order. He even lowered his chin as Kael once had. But Kael had already moved out of reach, and the young man continued through the strike instead of changing it.The blast tore tiles from the wall beside the stairs.Kael limped toward the empty stretch of platform

“Don't stand up yet,” Kael said. “Look beside your hand.”Evelyn stopped pushing herself off the ground. Her palm rested inches from a break in the stone. Beyond it, gray light covered an empty space with no visible bottom.Damian released her wrist so she could crawl away from the edge. Kael stayed on his side until she reached wider ground, then dragged his injured leg beneath him. His shoulder hurt where Damian had struck it, and the fall had made every other injury worse.A strip of station tiles hung above them. Through it, Evelyn could see the underside of the broken bench. Farther away, dark stone steps rose toward a mountain summit beneath a sky crowded with banners.She reached for her radio.“Shaw to the entrance team,” she said. “Do you read me?”Only a faint hiss answered. She tried again while Kael examined the ground ahead. The stone beneath them narrowed into a path interrupted by gaps. Some sections resembled the station platform. Others belonged to places he knew from