Page 102 of Twist of Fate

Koios worked through the final barrier. The screen went blank for a heartbeat.

Then the files opened.

Koios moved through them quickly, separating the information into groups Connal could not follow.

His hands stopped.

“These files contain some sort of measurements.”

Luke moved closer to the workstation. “Measurements of what?”

“The files don’t say.” Koios selected several entries and displayed them side by side. Dates and columns of numbers appeared beside maps marked with points of light. “Each entry is identified only as an anomaly and includes a location, time, frequency, and measured strength.”

“Anomaly compared to what?” Luke asked.

“There is no baseline included.”

Asterius approached the screens. “Then how do we determine what they measured?”

“We begin with what we can identify.” Koios sorted the entries by frequency, then selected the strongest result and enlarged it across the central screen.

Tyson leaned toward the display. “Wait. I recognize that location.”

Connal studied the map. “Where?”

“The site of the fire,” Tyson said. “You followed a surge of magic there. The fire engine you attacked was parked outside the building.”

Connal remembered the unnatural power gathering around the burning structure. Human firefighters had arrived before the warriors could investigate its source, forcing them to leave with questions they had never answered.

Koios opened the remaining entries and arranged them beside the first. More locations appeared, each marked by a spike of varying strength.

“The frequencies match,” he said. “Whatever produced these records was searching for one specific form of energy.”

Asterius stared at the maps. “Magic.”

“Yes,” Koios said. “Someone built a system that tracks magic.”

For one heartbeat, no one moved.

Then Asterius swore and drove his fist into the concrete wall beside the workstation. A crack spread outward from the point of impact.

“Where is this weapon?”

Koios’s wings drew tight behind him. “The files do not identify the location of the equipment. Whoever prepared this drive included the results and nothing more.”

“Then we find it another way.”

Tyson studied the maps. “What can the results tell us about its capabilities?”

“I can establish its precision. Its range is less certain.”

“What do you know about the range?” Luke asked.

“Nothing here establishes its maximum.”

“How precisely can it locate the magic it detects?”

Koios enlarged the result from the fire until the point of light narrowed around the structure itself. “To a single building.”