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"How long before?" Rhyven asks.

"Variable. Jonas's location recorded a three-percent ward decrease forty-seven minutes before his estimated disappearance. Elara's street lantern network dimmed approximately twenty minutes before. Lysa's patrol marker..." Neris looks toward the report. "...fourteen minutes."

"Mara?"

"Nine."

Silence. "Aelindra?" Nyra asks.

Professor Neris looks at her. "Seconds." No one moves.

Nyra pulls the reports toward herself. "Forty-seven. Twenty. Fourteen. Nine. Seconds."

Cassian frowns. "It's getting closer."

"Maybe." She writes. "Or our measurements are improving." Of course she says that. Careful. Always careful. But I can see it in her face. She doesn't believe that's all.

"Warning." I say. Everyone looks toward me. "What if the depletion is a warning?"

"Of what?" Caelen asks.

"That whatever takes them is nearby."

Rhyven's expression sharpens. "Then we can detect it."

"Maybe." Nyra says. She circles the times. "Before it happens." That changes everything.

Professor Neris leaves almost immediately. Council.

Protocols. More instruments. Within the hour, every active ward station will begin continuous depletion monitoring. For the first time we may have something resembling an alarm. Not bells after someone vanishes. Something before. Hope is dangerous. I feel it anyway.

We remain in the Archive. Because apparently leaving is no longer something we do.

Cassian leans over the map. "There's still a problem."

Nyra looks toward him. "Only one?"

"Funny." He points toward the sites. "We're looking at magic."

"Yes."

"What about people?" Silence.

Professor Vayne studies him. "Explain."

Cassian sits straighter. His humor disappears. "If something suppresses manifestations..." He looks toward me. "And Eirea experienced Aelindra losing access to hers..." I know where he's going.

"Then?" Nyra prompts.

Cassian hesitates. "Sirens don't only sense active thought."

Professor Vayne's expression changes. "No."

Cassian continues. "We sense presence. Emotion. Attention. Sometimes..." He searches for the word. "The shape of someone being there." I have never heard him describe siren magic that way.

Caelen folds his arms. "Can you detect where someone disappeared?"

"I don't know."