You should be resting, I said from the doorway.
I am resting. He didn’t look up. I’m just also working.
I crossed to his bedside. Echo’s scales shifted to concerned blue-gray.
On the tablet screen was dimensional mathematics that made my eyes hurt to look at. Portal geometry equations were layered over corruption flow patterns, and architecture diagrams seemed to fold in on themselves.
What is this? I asked.
The lattice structure. His voice stayed flat and professional. Dimensional boundaries enforce termination rules. It’s theoretically possible.
Can you build it?
His hand tightened on the stylus. No.
The admission cost him. I could see it in the way his jaw clenched.
My magic is too unstable, he continued clinically, like diagnosing someone else’s condition. Opening a single portal right now would probably kill me. Building a planetary-scale lattice is not viable.
I settled into the chair beside his bed. But you’re working on it anyway.
Because someone else might be able to execute it. He finally looked at me. If I can translate it correctly.
Translate it into what?
That’s the problem. He pulled up another diagram, a corruption flow with geometric overlays. Portal magic works in dimensional space. I see the geometry naturally. But for someone else to build this, they’d need to perceive the structure first.
Understanding clicked. My truth magic.
Possibly. He zoomed in on a convergence point. If you can reveal the actual architecture underneath corruption’s spread, show where the boundaries need to form, and map the geometry in real-time while someone else builds it.
I studied the diagrams. Walk me through it.
Elio…
Marigold figured out we need to restore mortality to the corruption cycle. Levon confirmed it’s possible through harmony. You’ve designed the architecture. I leaned forward. Now teach me how to see what you see so we can actually execute this.
He was quiet for a moment but then nodded.
The corruption propagates through existing wellspring connections, he said. But those connections exist in dimensional space most witches can’t perceive. Your truth magic reveals what’s hidden. If you can expose the dimensional architecture to show where space actually bends around wellspring connections…
Then someone can see where to build the boundaries.
Exactly. He pulled up a three-dimensional model. We don’t destroy the connections. We redefine them. Build a boundary membrane with specific properties. Inside the boundary, corruption can exist. Outside, it cannot. At the edge…
Energy drain, I said. Every time corruption tries to cross, it loses charge.
Yes. The system becomes mortal. Finite. Subject to natural depletion.
I looked at the mathematics, the dimensional stress calculations, the geometric precision required.
This needs perfect execution.
Yes. One mistake and the boundary becomes a rupture point. The lattice collapses. Corruption destabilizes globally.
Silence settled between us.
Show me how to see it, I said. The dimensional geometry. What my truth magic needs to reveal so someone else can build it.
