Kael
"Fifteen seconds," I said.
Veylan looked toward the ledge.
"Cost?"
"Three months."
I had said two months before the source operation. Saying three should have been harder.
It came out quickly because there was a man bound to a chair and another trying to keep him there.
Veylan's eyes moved from my face to the open side channel. He did not ask whether I was certain I wanted to pay. He needed to know what the payment would buy the people inside the room.
"Full duration?"
"Fifteen. If I stay conscious."
"And if you stop early?"
"Still three months."
He nodded once. I was glad he had asked. I would have hated explaining afterward that a shorter field would not have returned any of it.
Liora's hand stopped on the loosened cover.
Only for a moment.
Then she set her blade against its edge and checked where the guard stood with Orven.
"Twenty meters?" Veylan asked.
"Around me. Healing inside stops."
Nyx repeated the warning toward the service passage.
