The sub-basement lab beneath Garrett Automotive had never looked less like a garage and more like a cathedral.
At 4:47 a.m., forty-eight hours after Harold walked out of his third trial whole, Reed stood at the center holo-table surrounded by impossible light. Blueprints rotated in three dimensions: mountain-stone lattice, phoenix-gold filaments, Laken's frost runes, Luca's ethical encryption, Wade's legal kill-switches, and Harold's voluntary dragon-scale resonance.
The Magical Dampening Field Generator (MDFG-7) hovered above the table like a captured star (softball-sized, matte black, etched with every forgiveness they'd earned).
Reed's hands didn't shake anymore.
Laken stood opposite him, barefoot in one of his old lab coats, hair braided with glacier crystals that caught the bl
