He built infrastructure that runs itself.
Ancient corruption cycles would surge, consume available energy, and then collapse back into dormancy with natural endings. The wellsprings’ defenses were designed to wait out the storm until corruption exhausted itself.
But the master’s network didn’t exhaust. It recycled and fed corruption back into itself, creating a closed loop with no natural terminus. He’d removed death from something that was supposed to be temporary.
The door opened behind me. I turned, expecting Cyrus or Marigold.
The vampire appeared like he’d always been there, like reality had simply forgotten to notice him until this moment.
Levon looked exactly as he had in his impossible library months ago, pale, ancient, and carefully controlled.
You found it, he said quietly.
Found what?
The truth the automation was hiding. He crossed to stand beside me, studying my illusion overlay with academic interest. The ancient cycles. The natural endings he removed.
I looked at him. You knew.
I suspected. I’ve seen corruption burn itself out before. Centuries ago, before the master learned to make it permanent. His voice stayed clinical. But I’m a vampire who survived by not being visible. I couldn’t exactly share that observation with the council.
Why tell me now?
Because Diana would want me to help if I could. He said it without title or rank—Diana, not Captain Parker. The name of someone he’d known before all of that.
Then he gestured to my overlay. Binding corruption back into the cycle is possible. It’s been done before on much smaller scales. Usually by accident, when corruption encountered conditions that forced it back into natural patterns.
What conditions?
Harmony. He said it like a diagnosis. Multiple magical types working in perfect synchronization. Death force encountering life force in equal measure. The cycle reasserting itself through combined will instead of individual power.
My mind raced. Four types of magic. Four heirs who’d learned to work in harmony.
We’d need Keane, I said.
You would. His expression held something that might have been sympathy. Portal magic to create the containment architecture and build limits that corruption can’t cross.
He’s incapacitated.
Then you wait for him to recover. Or you find another way. Levon moved toward the door but then paused. What you’re attempting is giving death back to something that forgot how to die. Restoring the natural limit.
Will it work?
I don’t know. No one’s tried it on a planetary scale. He paused at the threshold. But it’s the only path that doesn’t require you to become what you’re fighting.
Then he was gone. Just… absent. Reality forgetting him again.
I stood with my illusions and Echo’s contemplative colors, the certainty settling into place.
We had to make corruption mortal again through harmony and integration.
And if Keane had figured out the how, I needed to learn it.
THE MEDICAL CENTER WAS QUIET at this hour, most patients sedated with the healing wards humming their steady rhythm.
I found Keane exactly where I expected, propped against pillows with his tablet balanced on his lap, stylus moving in small, precise gestures despite the visible tremor in his hand.
He looked terrible—pale with dark circles under his deep blue eyes. Wisp flickered anxiously beside him, but his focus was absolute.
