The crystallized ley-node sits on the stainless-steel table in the center of Morgan’s subterranean laboratory, glowing with a faint, pulsing azure light. It is no larger than a human fist, but it contains enough raw, stabilized magical resonance to power a small city for a decade. To the human scientists waiting on the coast, it will look like a miraculous, newly discovered geological anomaly—a hyper-dense piezoelectric mineral.
To us, it is bait.
I stand over the table, my hands hovering just inches above the crystal. Beside me, Kade mirrors my stance. We are not touching, but our minds are seamlessly interlocked, the permanent merge allowing us to share the immense cognitive load of the task.
The lattice is holding, Kade projects, his mental voice a steady, rhythmic anchor in my mind.
