Chapter 14Time did not stop, of course. Lorre had not ever quite figured out how to do that, though it would’ve been a useful skill. He wasn’t omnipotent, as much as he liked to pretend, and he had limitations.
But he could stop motion. He could reach into the weaving of the world, and find particular strings, and still their continuous thrumming with intangible fingertips.
He felt Gareth at his back like the embodiment of the North, broad and muscular and loyal.
He stood on the road, barefoot because he’d forgotten to bother with boots and socks, a slender weary magician with messy long blond hair falling over borrowed green-blue plaid and the raspberry weave of his coat, not exactly clashing. He kept one hand up: touching the universe.
It was all he needed to do.
He looked at the se
