Chapter 26 #2
Elara’s quill resumed its scratching almost immediately.
“No.” She didn’t look up. “The tear only determines entry. After that, we’re moving through a liminal space.
” Her quill paused mid-stroke. “If I miscalculate the distance between the anchor points by even a few strides, the exit shifts.” She added one last number, then met his eyes.
“And if it shifts, we won’t land in the record hall. ”
She tapped once against the parchment.
“We’ll land inside a wall.”
Eamon’s brows lifted slightly. “That would be inconvenient.”
“Very. In the human realm—this part was simpler. I knew the terrain. The pressure of the world there, the way the currents bent around the cities. I could feel the distances well enough to cut a seam and step through.” Her gaze drifted briefly to the map of Odhrán’s city.
“But this plane behaves differently. The currents are unfamiliar. The compression isn’t consistent yet.
I’d rather solve the equation first than guess and hope the math is merciful. ”
Elara shifted the building plans over the city map and traced the outline of the tower with the back of her quill.
“We are here.” She tapped the point where Odhrán’s house stood.
Then she slid her finger across the parchment to the archives district on the opposite side of the city. “And we need to appear here.”
Her finger moved again, this time sliding inward through the building’s drawn corridors. “Third level. Records wing. Somewhere with space enough to arrive without making too much noise.” Her gaze flicked to the narrow square sketched along the interior wall. “A cloakroom.”
Eamon leaned forward to study the plans. “When I first heard your account,” he said, “of the tear in the Veil—how humans use it to travel—I struggled to make sense of it.” His eyes moved across the maps, the neat lines of calculation. “It seemed impossible.”
Elara looked up at last. “Most things do, until someone writes them down. Math explains a great deal.”
“And the rest?”
“Draoth.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Stolen Draoth.”
The quill hung motionless in her hand before she set it aside.
“Yes. I imagine the earliest gates were mapped by Sídhe artificers. They must have built the framework first—where the currents run, where they knot, where they thin.” Her fingers traced one of her corrections along the drawn canal.
“Humans must have taken the knowledge after,” she said.
“Copied the framework and built their own methods from it.”
The curiosity in Eamon’s expression vanished immediately, replaced by something older and harder. His gaze moved across the page again, but it no longer looked like scholarly interest. It looked like anger buried so deep it had learned to sit still.
Elara leaned back from the maps, feeling strangely hollow. Her stomach turned. “I want to stop that, Eamon. I want to stop it from ever happening again.”
His eyes shifted back to her.
“That’s why I’m going with you,” she said after a moment.
“Why I’m creeping through this house in the dark instead of telling the truth to the people who’d try to stop me.
All Reynnar knows is that the Sídhe who vanished from his village said they felt…
called. As if a spell had wrapped around them—something that pulled them from their homes before they even understood what was happening.
If the Concordium holds reports—names, places, dates—then there may be a pattern buried there. Where it begins. How it spreads.”
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “If we can find that pattern, we can warn people. Move them before the spell reaches their villages—before they feel the call.” Elara sniffed once and lowered her gaze to the maps, studying the figures though she no longer truly saw them.
“We’ll decide the rest later.”
Eamon made a low sound in his throat.
Her head snapped up. “What?”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
She turned back to the map, ignoring him.
By the time she finished the final calculation, the suffocating weight in the room had eased.
She sanded the ink and brushed the dust away.
The path through the Void lay clear now, reduced to clean lines and figures.
It always struck her as faintly absurd that something so strange could become so simple once the numbers fell into place.
She blew softly across the page. “Done.”
“And you’re certain?”
“As certain as one can be while cutting holes in the fabric of reality,” she said dryly, gathering the maps and smoothing their corners before rolling them closed.
As she worked, a slow awareness pressed in—water coursing over skin, tracing muscle and bone, following the path of hands.
Steam thickened the air, fragrant with soap.
The movement was his—Reynnar’s—yet the sensation sank into her flesh as if he stood behind her, touching her instead.
Each sweep of his hands sent a tremor through her, a ghost of contact pooling heat at the base of her spine.
Her mouth parted; the blood drained from her face. Heat gave way to shock, then guilt. She tore free of the vision, the link shattering. A numbing chill rushed in where fire had been, leaving her breathless, the parchment trembling beneath her fingertips.
Across from her, Eamon was watching.
“Something wrong?”
She stilled her hands on the rolled map, forcing her voice level. “No.”
Guilt pooled low in her gut. Her gaze fixed on the rolled parchment in her lap. Reynnar should be told. But the conversation unfolded too clearly in her mind—him standing in the doorway, arms crossed, that familiar line already forming between his brows.
He would listen.
Every advantage would be weighed before her second sentence.
Then he’d decide the risk cost too much—and while they measured consequences, who knew what Osin might be plotting.
Her fingers tightened around the parchment, knuckles whitening against the ink-stained surface.
It was dangerous, yes—but not disastrously so.
She wasn’t tearing holes between realms. Just cutting a shortcut through the city.
A small incision in the Veil, two hundred and ninety-three paces through shadow before stepping out again.
Elara rolled the map, her hands trembling faintly, and tied it with twine.
“Ready?” Eamon rose, offering his hand.
She didn’t take it, pushing herself upright instead. His mouth crooked, amused.
“So,” he said, glancing around the cramped storage room, “this is where you intend to split the world open. A linen closet.”
“It’s as good a place as any,” she said, tucking the map beneath her arm and drawing a slow breath. “If we’re fast enough, we can slip into the tower, find what we need, and return before anyone notices we’re gone.”
Eamon stepped closer, his presence suddenly filling the narrow space. His gaze caught on the dagger; one hand twitched before he folded both behind his back.
“Lead the way.”