“And we have to... what? Synchronize?” She keeps her distance. She watches me, not the book.
“That is the first stage. We must align our breathing, our focus. The magic requires resonance to form the initial connection.” I run through the steps in my mind. The texts are clear. Stage One: Synchronization. Stage Two: Truth. Stage Three: Choice. We will not get to two or three if one fails.
“And you know how to do this?”
“I know what the Chronicle demands.” I do not add that I have never performed the ritual. She does not need that information. Competence is required.
She takes a slow breath. “Okay. Fine. Let’s... synchronize.” She says the word like it tastes bad.
“We will stand opposite one another. Inside the circle.”
She looks at the salt lines, then steps over them. She does not uncross her arms. Her gaze flicks to the windows, to the quiet shapes, then back to me.
“What about Keith?” she asks.
“He is... monitoring.” Keith has taken his shadow self to the conference room. He claims he is “facilitating a remote observation.”
“Right.” She finally drops her arms, but her hands immediately shove into her pockets. “Okay. What now?”
“Place your hands on the Chronicle. Opposite mine.”
I place my palms flat on the cover. The leather is cold, but a current thrums beneath it. She hesitates. Her eyes fix on my hands, on the frost that traces the binding from my touch.
“It won’t hurt you,” I say.
“You keep saying that.” But she moves. She places her hands on the book. Her fingers are short, her nails unpainted. One knuckle is red, as if she’d punched something. She is warm. The heat from her skin meets the cold from mine, and the air over the book shimmers.
“Now,” I instruct. “Breathe with me. In.”
I draw a slow breath.
She tries. Her breath hitches. She lets it out in a rush and tries again.
“I’m trying. This is weird.”
“It is necessary. Again.”
We breathe. In. Out. I match my rhythm to her uneven one, attempting to guide her, to force the alignment. The magicrequires it. After four breaths, the symbols on the book begin to glow, a faint silver.
“It’s working?” she whispers.
“It is beginning.” The Chronicle responds. That is the part I should find reassuring.
But the nature of its response is… unfamiliar.
The light is rising along the seam of the book in uneven pulses, not the steady arc described in the manuals. Her magic signature is fluctuating, not weak, not insufficient, just undisciplined. Erratic. Emotional.
Every previous synchronization I’ve witnessed followed the known pattern. Trained participants. Predictable tempo. One initiated through recitation, one through reinforcement. The Chronicle bound them, and the bond held. Even when brief, it was precise.
This is not precise.
She is breathing too fast. Her shoulders are tense. Her heartbeat is out of rhythm. This should not work.
And yet the light climbs.
She is not prepared. She has not studied. She does not know what her consent means.
And still, the Chronicle answers her.
