Ogdi stood on the balcony, his hand gripping the cold marble railing. Below him, the gala was a swirling vortex of gold, laughter, and ignorance.
"The chain," Ogdi whispered.
His eyes locked on the massive iron link holding the crystal chandelier suspended directly above the King's head.
The Null field of the estate pressed against his mind like a heavy, wet blanket. It suffocated the Lattice, making the sapphire lines of reality faint, slippery, and almost impossible to grip.
"You can't Edit the iron directly," Azad warned. His voice sounded distant, muffled by Valerius's presence—like a radio transmission coming through deep water. "The Nullifier's field protects the structure. If you try to snap the chain, the magic will dissolve before it touches the metal."
"I just need to snap the bolt," Ogdi murmured, his sweat turning cold. "Editing the gravity pulling on it should be enough, seeing its structure."
But I can't increase gravity, the energy requirement in a Null zone would kill me.
"Then I'll target the pivot," Ogdi decided.
He reached into his pocket and squeezed the silver coin until the metal bit into his skin.
Focus.
He aimed for the air conditioning vent blowing directly onto the chain. It was twenty feet up, just outside the thickest part of the Null field.
"Amplify," Ogdi commanded.
Exchange.
He didn't pay with blood this time. He paid with balance.
As he forced the edit through the suffocating Null field, his inner ear screamed. The vestibular system in his brain scrambled.
The world spun violently. Up became Down. Left became mauve.
Ogdi collapsed to his knees, vomiting bile onto the marble floor, his equilibrium shattered. He clutched the railing, the room tilting at a certain angle in his vision.
But above the ballroom, the air vent roared. A focused, unnatural blast of wind hit the chandelier's pivot. The crystal giant began to sway.
Creak.
The sound cut through the orchestral music like a bone snapping.
The King looked up, his wine glass halfway to his lips.
SNAP.
The momentum sheared the rusted bolt Ogdi had weakened in his mind's eye—not by magic, but by pure, accelerated physics.
Gravity took over.
The chandelier fell, plummeting with the terrifying weight of a heavy truck.
CRASH.
The sound was absolute. Thousands of crystals shattered on the marble floor, sending shards flying like diamond shrapnel.
Screams erupted. The crowd surged in a panic, a stampede of silk and tuxedos.
Jean was moving before the glass settled. He tackled a server—Nala—shoving her behind a pillar just as a wave of crystal shards decimated the champagne tower where she had been standing.
"Stay down!" Jean barked, drawing his service pistol. His eyes scanned the balcony.
He saw a shadow moving away. A figure in a charcoal suit, stumbling as if drunk or concussed.
Ogdi.
Jean's mind fired a connection. He knew that walk. He knew that silhouette.
But then, the hole in his memory throbbed—a void where a reason should be. The thought failed to complete.
Why do I know him?
He didn't shoot. He hesitated. And in that second, the shadow was gone.
The Private Gallery
The crash echoed down the hallway, vibrating the floorboards.
Valerius stopped. He didn't flinch. He didn't turn around.
"A distraction," he noted, his voice devoid of surprise. "Crude. Violent. Likely your 'Lord Vane'."
Ylaeth stood ten feet behind him. They were in a circular room lined with white velvet. In the center, resting on a pedestal of pure obsidian, was the Crown of Silence.
It was terrifyingly beautiful. The jagged silver band seemed to cut the air around it, and the void-black gem in the center pulsed with a rhythm that matched Ylaeth's own heartbeat.
"You can't have it," Valerius said, turning slowly.
The Null field in the room was intense. Ylaeth felt heavy, as if she were walking underwater. Her time-sight was gone. She couldn't see the future, she could barely see the present. She was just a girl in a dress, trapped with a monster.
"You don't understand it," Ylaeth whispered, backing away. "You use it to mute the world. But it doesn't want to mute... it wants to communicate."
"The void isn't devoid of noise," Valerius said in a weird, flat tone, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.
He took a step toward her. He didn't raise a hand. He didn't cast a spell.
He simply projected emptiness.
Ylaeth fell to her knees. It wasn't fear, it was the sudden, total absence of will. Being near him felt like depression weaponized. The drive to stand, to fight, to breathe—it all evaporated.
"The King needs calmness to build his new world," Valerius droned, walking closer. "I will calm you, my dear. Permanently."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a dagger. It wasn't magical. It was an incredibly sharpened steel.
"Uncompromising realism," he muttered.
BAM.
The double doors to the gallery flew open.
Ogdi stood there. He was leaning against the doorframe, pale as a sheet, blood trickling from his ear. His equilibrium was still shot, to him, Valerius was standing on the ceiling.
"Get away from her," Ogdi rasped.
Valerius sighed. "The Editor," he said, the sarcasm dripping like acid. "I felt you scratching at the walls of my house. You used him as a diversion."
"I'm going to have to break you," Ogdi said, pushing off the doorframe.
He tried to summon the Sovereign Word. I wish you were...
Nothing.
The words died in his throat. The Null field choked the wish before it could form. It felt like trying to light a match in a vacuum.
"No edits here," Valerius said, turning his flat, grey gaze on Ogdi. "No magic. Just skills."
Valerius moved.
He was fast. Shockingly fast for a bureaucrat. He didn't move with martial arts grace, he moved with efficiency. He moved like he was filing a document.
He stepped inside Ogdi's guard.
Ogdi threw a punch—a desperate, wild haymaker.
Valerius caught Ogdi's wrist. He didn't twist it, he pressed his thumb into the nerve cluster.
Ogdi's arm went dead.
Valerius drove a palm into Ogdi's solar plexus.
Ogdi folded. The air left his lungs in a wheeze.
Valerius followed with a knee to the face.
CRUNCH.
Ogdi flew backward, crashing into a display case. Ancient pottery shattered around him.
"You rely on the Lattice," Valerius stated, wiping a speck of dust from his sleeve. "You lean on it like a crutch. Without it, you are just a student who reads books."
Ogdi coughed, spitting blood onto the white velvet carpet. He tried to stand, but his legs were shaking uncontrollably. The pain in his nose was blinding.
He's right, Azad admitted, his voice a faint, terrified whisper. You can't Edit him. He is a blank page. The ink slides off.
Ogdi looked at Ylaeth. She was struggling to stand, her eyes fixed on the Crown.
He looked at Valerius. The Auditor was checking his watch.
I can't edit the Nullifier, Ogdi thought, his mind racing through the pain. But I might be able to edit myself.
The Null field suppressed external magic. But what about internal biology? That was harder to suppress because the Lattice was the DNA itself.
Ogdi focused inward. He visualized his own nervous system. He saw the red, angry flares of pain signals rushing up his spine.
"The adrenaline response. The pain receptors. The fear."
Switch it off.
It wasn't a spell. It was a lobotomy of the senses.
Ogdi felt a click in his brain.
The pain vanished. The broken nose, the bruised ribs—the data was still there, but his brain stopped processing the signal.
He didn't heal. He just stopped feeling the damage.
He stood up. His face was a mask of blood, but his eyes were dead calm.
Valerius raised an eyebrow. "Resilient."
Ogdi didn't speak. He charged.
He grabbed a shard of glass from the floor.
Valerius sidestepped, raising his arm to block—
Ogdi dropped.
He swept Valerius's legs. It was a move from the street fights in South Farren, dirty and effective.
Valerius hit the floor with a thud.
Ogdi scrambled on top of him, driving his elbow down toward the Auditor's throat.
Valerius caught the elbow.
His grip was like iron. The Nullifier wasn't just anti-magic, he was physically enhanced. His muscles felt like hydraulic pistons.
"Inefficient," Valerius whispered.
He threw Ogdi off like a ragdoll.
Ogdi slammed into the pedestal, hearing a rib crack. He didn't feel it. He just noted the failure of his chest cavity.
"Enough," Valerius said, standing up and straightening his tie. "I will end this."
He raised the dagger.
"Ylaeth!" Ogdi screamed, his voice raw. "NOW!"
Ylaeth didn't run for the door. She lunged for the pedestal.
Valerius turned, his eyes widening for the first time. "Don't touch it!"
Ylaeth grabbed the Crown of Silence.
She didn't put it on. She held it up like a lantern.
HUMMMMMMM.
The sound was not a sound. It was anti-noise. It was the sound of a tape reel ending.
The Crown reacted to the Weaver. It didn't just absorb magic and space, it absorbed Time.
A shockwave of grey energy exploded from the Crown.
Valerius froze.
He was caught mid-step, his "scalpel" raised. The air around him turned into grey amber.
The Nullifier had been stopped.
"It's... heavy," Ylaeth gasped, dropping to her knees. The Crown was trembling in her hands. "It's eating the seconds, Ogdi. It's eating the room."
The grey wave was expanding. The floor tiles were turning to dust. The velvet walls were withering, aging centuries in seconds.
"We have to go!" Ogdi shouted.
He scrambled over, grabbed Ylaeth by the arm, and hauled her up.
"Don't let go of it," he told her.
They ran, burst out of the gallery just as the grey wave consumed the doorframe, turning the wood into ancient rot.
They sprinted through the panicked ballroom. The guests were fleeing the other way, toward the main entrance.
"The window!" Ogdi pointed.
Jean was there. He was directing the evacuation. He saw them running. He saw a Crown in Ylaeth's hand.
"Halt!" Jean shouted, raising his gun.
Ogdi looked at him.
I can't hurt him. He saved Nala.
"Murik!" Ogdi yelled, hoping the old man was listening.
Outside, in the bushes, Murik had been waiting for a signal. He didn't have a tie, but he had a piece of charcoal and a lifetime of resentment.
He drew a line in the air.
FWROOSH.
A massive, illusory wall of fire erupted across the balcony doors, cutting Jean off from Ogdi.
"Go!" Murik screamed from the garden.
Ogdi and Ylaeth smashed through the glass doors, diving through the illusionary fire. They landed in the grass, rolling.
The "fire" felt cold—it was just ink and intent.
"The car is gone!" Ylaeth panted, clutching the Crown to her chest. "Kai's driver fled!"
"We don't need a car," Ogdi said. He looked at the Crown. "We have the silencer."
He grabbed the Crown from Ylaeth's hands. The weight of it nearly buckled his knees. It felt like holding a dying star.
Ogdi whispered. "Use the Crown as a lens. Nullify our location."
That is dangerous, Azad warned. You are editing the map. You risk falling off the edge.
"Do it!"
Ogdi held the Crown up. He focused on the concept of Here.
"I wish we were... Gone."
Exchange.
The Crown flared with black light.
The world folded. It didn't shimmer or teleport. It simply deleted them from the coordinates.
Valerius's estate vanished from view.
The Safehouse
THUD.
They slammed onto the concrete floor of the bunker.
Ogdi rolled onto his back, gasping.
The "Internal Edit" wore off.
The pain rushed back in all at once—the broken nose, the bruised ribs, the concussion, the cracked bone.
He screamed, curling into a ball as his nervous system rebooted with a vengeance.
Ylaeth dropped the Crown. It rolled across the floor, coming to a stop at Kai's feet.
Kai looked down at the jagged silver band, then at the two battered people bleeding on his floor.
He let out a low whistle.
"You actually did it," Kai whispered.
Eloi stepped out of the shadows. He looked at the Crown, then at Ogdi.
"Is Valerius dead?" Eloi asked.
"No," Ogdi wheezed, spitting blood. "Just... paused."
Murik stumbled in from the tunnel entrance, out of breath and covered in dirt. "I... I set the hedges on fire. For real this time."
Ylaeth sat up, trembling. She looked at her hands. They were stained grey, the residue of the Crown's power.
"It talks," she whispered, staring at the artifact. Ogdi forced himself to sit up. He wiped the blood from his face.
"Then we let it scream," Ogdi said. "At the King."
He looked at the map on the table. The lines of the isolation field were drawn. Now they had the lock.
"We have the Crown," Ogdi said. "Now we just need the Throne."
"Protocol Zero is accelerating," Eloi warned, pointing to the screens. "The King has moved his ceremony to dawn. We don't have days, Ogdi. We have hours."
Ogdi stood up, swaying.
"Then we don't sleep," Ogdi said. "We act."
He took a step toward the table, but then stopped. A cold feeling washed over him, completely separate from his injuries.
He froze.
"Ogdi?" Ylaeth asked. "What is it?"
"I forgot something and really important at that," Ogdi whispered, his face draining of color.
"The coin?" Kai asked.
"No," Ogdi said, his voice trembling. "Not a thing."
The realization hit him harder than Valerius's fist.
"What though?"