“And we’re standing in the middle of all of them,” Sonny adds.
“Not for long,” Varek replies. His gaze shifts to me again, something unreadable flashes there before it stills. “We move carefully,” he says. “We gather information. We do not react without understanding fully what she intends.”
Aelith lets out a rough laugh. “And while you do that, she?—”
“She loses leverage if she kills him,” Varek cuts in.
Aelith stills. “Not immediately,” he says.
“No,” Varek agrees. “Which means we have time.”
Not much.
But enough.
Enough to matter.
Enough to act.
Aelith exhales slowly, the fight bleeding out of him in increments. Not gone. Just… contained. “For now,” he says.
“For now,” Varek echoes.
Momentum builds quickly once a direction is chosen.
Shanae starts assigning scouts, sending them out in pairs through secondary routes to confirm whether Aelith’s arrival was clean. Sonny volunteers without hesitation, earning himself a flat look from Kael that he dodges with practiced ease.
“I’ll be fine,” Sonny says. “I’m fast.”
“You’re reckless,” Kael replies.
“Also true.”
They stare at each other for a second, something unspoken passing between them, before Kael exhales and nods once. “Stay within range.”
“I always do.”
That’s a lie, but I imagine it’s a comforting one.
Across the room, Aelith has finally allowed Iris to push him into a chair, though the way he’s gripping the edge of it suggests he’d rather be anywhere else.
“We need to understand the storms,” he says, quieter now but no less intense. “If she can use them?—”
“Then we need to learn how before she does,” I finish.
Varek’s gaze shifts to me again. “Everyone here has seen the storms, travelled through them,” he says.
I wait, wondering where he’s going with this.
“But you have seen many.”
I nod. “While everything isn’t centred in the city, not a single rift has happened that’s not been visible from there.
“What did you notice?”
I run a hand over the back of my neck, thinking back. “They’re not random. They look chaotic, but… they build. Like pressure. Like something’s pushing through.”
“And Jamie’s the first kid who’s arrived during one,” Shanae says.
