But before unconsciousness took me completely, I forced my hands to move. I pulled up my tablet with shaking fingers and started documenting—not for me but for them. Portal geometry equations. Dimensional stress calculations. The architecture that might work if someone else could build it.
Keane, stop… Elio’s voice was concerned.
Blueprint, I managed. If I can’t… someone needs to…
My fingers kept moving even as my vision grayed. I translated dimensional mathematics into something Elio’s truth magic might be able to see. Into something Marigold’s cycle authority could anchor. Into something that didn’t require me.
The last thing I remembered was Elio’s hand over mine, steadying my shaking fingers long enough to save the file.
I WOKE IN THE MEDICAL center with magical restraints around my wrists. The ceiling above me was familiar. Healing wards thrummed in the walls along with the scent of therapeutic herbs and regulated magic.
Dr. Phillips stood beside my bed.
Portal exhaustion, she said without preamble. Her diagnostic magic pulsed over me, clinical and thorough. Severe dimensional backlash. Your nervous system is compromised. Magic temporarily inaccessible.
How long? My voice came out hoarse.
Forty-eight hours minimum for any recovery at all. Best case: you regain limited function after three days of complete rest. Worst case: permanent damage to your dimensional perception.
The weight of that settled. Three days. We had four until solstice.
I need to—
You need to rest, she interrupted. Her expression was professional but firm. If you open another portal in the next forty-eight hours, you may not survive it. Your body used itself as a dimensional anchor, Keane. That’s not something you recover from quickly.
She adjusted the restraints slightly. The wards will prevent you from accessing your magic, even if you try. For your own protection.
Then she left me alone with the quiet devastation. I’d done everything right, made every correct tactical decision, and executed with perfect precision despite impossible conditions.
Yet failed anyway.
The system had continued. People had died. The solstice geometry kept aligning regardless of my intelligence or preparation or desperate calculations.
I’d always believed that knowledge was the solution. That if I just understood enough, calculated precisely enough, planned thoroughly enough, I could protect the people I cared about.
But I couldn’t.
The truth settled like cold certainty: If I can’t solve this, what am I for?
My entire identity was built on being the answer—the one who saw patterns others missed and calculated impossible solutions to execute them flawlessly.
Now I was the liability.
Footsteps. I turned my head too fast, my vision swimming with spatial disorientation.
Marigold stood in the doorway, Scout on her shoulder. Her dark brown eyes took in the restraints, the medical equipment, my obvious incapacitation.
She didn’t ask what happened. Didn’t offer false reassurance.
She just crossed to sit beside the bed, her hand finding mine despite the restraints. Her thumb brushed my pulse like she was reminding me I was still here.
Cyrus told me, she said quietly. You saved Salzburg. Vienna. Chicago. Tokyo. Thousands of people.
And lost Budapest’s guard team.
You made the right choice.
It didn’t matter. My voice cracked despite my best effort. The system kept going anyway. I did everything right, but it wasn’t enough.
