caerulex

Chapter 45. The Bay of Ramsay

Without an ounce of hesitation, he reached out and grabbed onto Mother and Aunt Julia’s arms. He led them down the stairs, taking advantage of their momentary shock. Even as they realized what he was doing, they were unable to resist: He took the initiative to enervate the muscles in their upper body. He knew that any Life practitioners outside–if there were any–would be able to detect the action, but at this point, Ian didn’t see much point in subtlety.
He ignored the glares of pr...

Chapter 44. Deliberation

Ian knew something was amiss even before they left the cafe. A few plainclothes passersby on the street began to loiter outside; when he looked at any of them, he noticed that they were discretely eyeing the building’s second story. He didn’t think he was being paranoid in thinking that they were there for him. The more he looked at them, sensing their vitality through the windows and walls, the more he suspected that they might be practitioners: There was something about their vital ener...

Chapter 43. Reunion

Dedere’s hands gripped the potentioreader as if she weren’t careful, it would slip from her grasp. As she approached patient Dunai, she felt an almost imperceptible, oppressive pressure weigh on her.
Dunai looked at her without emotion, his face as placid as a still pond. After the outburst from earlier, he seemed to have collected himself. She was ashamed to admit that she couldn’t say the same for herself.
Dedere felt her heart start to race just thinking of the footage from the...

Chapter 42. Awakening

Lisandro felt his heart beat in his chest, its rhythm as rapid as Dedere’s tapping foot.

“The moment of reckoning has come,” she said. “Let’s see if ol’ Prophet was right about this one.”

Lisandro could tell that Dedere was extremely agitated because she never fidgeted. He could guess why: The patient had taken three minutes longer than anticipated to exit the loop, almost double the time expected. In other words, this experiment was going to be twice as expensive as...