His lips twitched. “That, yes. But the dark circles gave you away. We need to be using all our waking hours strategically. There’s a lot that still needs to be done.” His tone softened. “Get some rest. We’ll need that big brain of yours if we have any chance.”
A compliment.Another one.
Elara couldn’t help the way her pulse quickened, the way her chest tightened in response. But instead of responding, she nodded, turning back toward the door. And yet, a small, ridiculous part of her almost expected him to call her back, though she had no idea why. She crushed the thought, reminding herself exactly who—what—he was. The Hunter. Thekiller.
Not someone she could afford to soften toward.
Still, the urge to glance over her shoulder itched. She ignored it, straightened her spine, and kept moving—each step a quiet rebellion against the pull that whispered for her to turn around. Just once.
“We’re approaching this wrong,”Elara murmured, brow furrowing as she stared at the equation between them. It was a complex calculation—one she had no memory of coming up with, but the more she studied it, the more she understood her thought process all those years ago.
She tapped the scroll. “The issue isn’t the energy itself. It’s how the currents move inside the Void. We’ve been treating them as fixed paths—but they aren’t. They shift. If we don’t account for the turbulence within the channels, we’ll never be able to track them accurately.”
The Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “But we’ve been mapping the larger currents. They’re stable enough to predict with some accuracy.”
“For short-term travel, yes,” Elara said, her tone thoughtful, “but if we want to use the Void as a longer route for navigation, we need to account for the fluctuations. Think of it like etheric streams—never entirely predictable, always in motion, but following a pattern we can map if we can identify the variables.”
His gaze flicked back to the equation, and he scratched his jaw. “So, you’re saying we need a way to track the smaller fluctuations within the larger streams? Like subcurrents?”
“Exactly.” Elara’s eyes brightened, leaning closer to point at a series of symbols they had sketched earlier. “Here—this part represents the primary current, the main channel that carries the bulk of energy. But beneath that, there are these smallerflows—subcurrents, like you said. They’re what’s causing the unpredictability when we try to navigate longer distances.”
“So, we need to calculate the probability of these subcurrents impacting the main flow,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Like trying to predict the trajectory of particles in a fluid continuum… It’s a matter of probabilities, not certainties.”
Elara nodded. “If we can figure out how to track those subcurrents—how they move, how they influence the main current—we could map a more accurate path through the Void. We’d know when to adjust our course, when the channel might shift, and where it will lead.”
“But how do we measure the subcurrents in real time? You and Thane had only ever tracked the larger streams, and even then, the data was inconsistent.”
Elara pursed her lips, her mind running through the possibilities. “We’d need a way to measure the fluctuations as we travel. It’s not about fixing a single point but reacting to the shifts.”
He considered this for a moment, then slowly nodded. “So, we need a way to bind ourselves to the currents, to ride the fluctuations without getting lost in them.” He leaned back against his chair. “We’d need something—some kind of mechanism or spell—that could detect and interpret those shifts instantly. Something that keeps us tethered to the larger current but flexible enough to adjust as needed.”
Elara’s mind was already racing ahead. “We could use a modified version of the stabilizing enchantments we use for short jumps through the Void, but with an added layer that reads the subcurrents. It would act like a compass, but one that constantly updates based on the Void’s shifts.”
“That could work,” the Hunter agreed, nodding. “It would be a matter of refining the enchantment to handle the addedcomplexity...” He trailed off, tapping a finger against his leg before looking back at her. “Let’s refine this.”
Elara nodded, her fingers already curling around the quill. If she had her memories, none of this would be necessary. All this research, all these questions—they were answers she’d once had.
There is an easier way to get your memories back... a voice whispered from the back of her mind, insidious and tempting. She shoved it aside. That was a last resort. One she wasn’t willing to consider. Not yet.
She sighed. “If we can?—”
“For fuck’s sake, if I have to listen to another word of this Void theory, I’m going to lose my gods-damned mind.” Tristan’s voice broke in, and Elara nearly jumped. She had completely forgotten he was there. He was slouched in the corner, looking bored out of his mind. Ever since her arrival, he hadn’t left the manor. And while he’d joked that cake-eating had become his full-time occupation, Elara was starting to suspect there was more truth in that than he let on.
“You’ve been at this all day,” he whined, eyes half-lidded as he glanced in her direction. “Time for a rest before you both drive yourselves mad.”
He wasn’t wrong. Theyhadbeen at it all day. After Elara got a few hours' worth of sleep, the Hunter began guiding her through how to pull from his ether safely, how to control it without, well, killing them both. Which, unsurprisingly, had gone as disastrously as one might imagine. She winced just thinking about it. The first time, she had nearly incinerated them both with fire. This time, it had been water—a torrent so strong it flooded the circle of protection they’d drawn, nearly drowning them both.
The Hunter had called for a break after that, and Elara couldn’t blame him. They’d both been soaked, exhausted, and Tristan had been watching her like she was actively trying tomurder his friend. When she’d gone back to her room to dry off, she found a fresh set of clothes already waiting for her on the bed. Simple, practical, and smelling faintly of clove. She stared at them for a moment, wondering when, exactly, the Hunter had managed to sneak them in.
When she re-entered the room, Tristan’s eyes flicked up, and the expression on his face was almost comical—somewhere between disbelief and amusement with a dash of annoyance thrown in for good measure. The Hunter, however, didn’t even glance her way. It was like he was intentionally avoiding looking at her in his clothes, which, considering he’d lent them to her, felt... strange.
She pushed through the awkwardness, forcing herself to focus on the research spread across the table. But after a few minutes of flipping through pages and scribbling notes, she felt his eyes on her. When she finally glanced up, there was a heat behind his gaze—an intensity she didn’t know how to handle. It crawled under her skin, unsettling, making her heart trip over itself.
Elara leaned back in her chair with a sigh, pulling herself back to the present. “We don’t have time for a break,” she muttered, though the ache in her back told her otherwise.
Tristan threw up his hands. “Right. Because rushing headfirst into another disaster is obviously a solid plan.”
Elara ignored him, turning her question to the Hunter instead. “How many more days do I have here?”
