"Except me."
The words remained between Liam and Seraphine long after the private record stopped feeling like something either of them should still be staring at.
Eventually, Liam lifted one hand toward the ceiling entry. The black-purple veil answered him more readily this time, drawing itself back across the lettering until the truth disappeared from Seraphine's view.
He looked at her. "Can you still see it?"
"No."
"Good."
Seraphine studied the relief in his face. "That may be the first useful thing we have learned about the obstruction."
"Besides the part where it keeps historically significant information away from people who would ruin my life with it."
"That too."
Liam looked toward the enormous black well at the center of the depression. "What now?"
Seraphine followed his gaze. "Something that does not threaten to rewrite recorded history."
"You picked that?"
She considered the impossible reservoir. "Relatively speaking."
They remained well away from the edge. Dark-purple currents turned beneath the black Essence, which occasionally folded inward with impossible depth.
"We are still not entering it," Seraphine reminded him.
"I was not planning to."
"I prefer rules stated before they become relevant."
"That explains your personality."
Liam focused on the well. The information that answered him felt quieter than a Function record, less like a set of instructions and more like an awareness of his own condition. There was no numerical measure for the Essence itself. Advancement appeared through Saturation, while the well also represented how much supernatural exertion his current state could sustain before rest became necessary.
He frowned. "So Ruined Sight has been active since Awakening, but it has not been draining this."
"Correct."
"Then what has it been draining?"
"You."
Seraphine continued, "Advancement and exertion are not the same thing. Ordinary Function use does not erase the progress already contained in your well. Strain accumulates against what you can sustain."
"How do I know when I am near the limit?"
"You feel it."
"That is incredibly imprecise."
"Your body has survived eighteen years without displaying an exhaustion percentage."
"Facility Forty-Seven would have installed one if they could."
Seraphine did not soften her expression into pity. "I believe you."
That was enough.
Liam turned toward the second illuminated monolith.
Fractured Step felt wrong before he reached it.
Not dangerous, exactly. Spatially dishonest.
The monolith never moved, yet twice Liam felt that a step carried him slightly farther than the distance he had crossed.
He stopped.
Seraphine noticed. "What?"
"The distance changed."
She looked between him and the monolith. "I saw nothing move."
"Neither did I."
"That is somehow worse."
"You are adapting."
"I resent the implication."
Liam opened the private record.
Fractured Step confirmed what the uncontrolled activation had suggested. Ruined Sight had to identify a viable spatial fracture; ordinary weaknesses did not qualify, and not every spatial fracture was usable. At Seed, Liam could bypass only short distances with poor destination precision. Repeated use risked spatial disorientation, and a bad emergence point could injure him. He could not carry another person, create rifts, or close them.
Then one warning resolved with almost insulting clarity.
DO NOT ASSUME EVERY PERCEIVED FRACTURE IS TRAVERSABLE.
Liam slowly looked at Seraphine.
She raised one finger. "Do not."
"You told me to touch one."
"I remember."
"The private record appears to have concerns about your methodology."
"My methodology successfully unlocked the Function."
"That may be the least responsible defense you have made."
"And yet you remain alive."
"Barely a standard."
Seraphine almost smiled.
Liam looked toward the twenty-eight dark monoliths. "If Fractured Step was already one of the thirty, why did touching that rift unlock it?"
"I do not know."
"There it is."
"I could invent an answer."
"That would make you less useful."
"Then we agree."
They considered whether the Function had required a particular experience, concept, realm interaction, or some combination they had not identified.
Liam regarded the twenty-eight dark monoliths. "So somewhere in this world are twenty-eight more terrible decisions waiting for us."
"No."
"You answered very quickly."
"Because I refuse to let that become our research method."
He looked toward her. "But technically—"
"No."
"Fine."
Seraphine asked him to examine the nearby rifts.
Only Liam could see them. Through Ruined Sight, some fractures belonged to damaged terrain or structures, while others existed in apparently empty space. A few possessed the same strange quality he had noticed before.
Usable.
Seraphine listened, then said, "Ruined Sight identifies the fracture."
Liam glanced toward Fractured Step's monolith. "And Fractured Step uses it."
Liam looked back at the dark monoliths. "If all thirty work together, I am not sure I want to know what the whole thing does."
"You do."
He turned toward her.
"You may not like the answer," Seraphine said. "That is different."
A few minutes later, she proposed one controlled traversal.
Liam stared at her. "You really do learn nothing."
"This experiment has substantially more information supporting it."
"The last time you said that, I disappeared."
"And now we know why."
"That does not improve the memory."
They set strict conditions: one short traversal, one known emergence area, no repetition, and an immediate stop if anything felt unstable.
Through Ruined Sight, he selected two compatible fractures separated by only several yards. Seraphine saw neither.
When Liam focused on both while holding Fractured Step in his awareness, something changed.
The space between the rifts did not shrink.
It became unnecessary.
"They feel connected," Liam said.
"How?"
"Like two tears in the same wound."
Seraphine's expression sharpened. "Do you know where you will emerge?"
"I think so."
"That was less confidence than I wanted."
"It was more confidence before you asked."
"You do not have to proceed."
Liam stared at the destination rift.
The first time, Seraphine had convinced him to take the risk.
This time, the choice belonged entirely to him.
"I want to know whether I can do it on purpose."
He stepped.
Seraphine vanished.
So did the well.
For a heartbeat, Liam existed somewhere without terrain.
Dark-purple fractures stretched through impossible depth in every direction. They were not cracks inside anything. Thousands of broken lines existed independently, some hair-thin, others vanishing beyond perception.
Then he saw the chain.
It crossed the depth far below him—or perhaps simply far away in a direction that had no useful name. The links were immense and black, apparently untouched even here. Liam could not see either end.
He had just enough time to wonder whether it was the same chain.
Then reality returned.
Liam emerged several feet from where he intended.
His balance disappeared with the missing distance.
He hit one knee, slid, and caught himself before momentum carried him farther down the slope toward his well.
Seraphine ran toward him. "What happened?"
Liam gripped the ground with both hands.
She seemed ten feet away and directly beside him at the same time. The well looked tilted. The monoliths stood at angles he knew were false.
He shut his eyes.
Ruined Sight continued happily ruining the attempt.
"Liam."
"I'm fine."
"You are holding the ground."
"The ground has become temporarily trustworthy."
Seraphine crouched beside him. "That does not qualify as fine."
"Your standards are becoming unreasonable."
His perception slowly settled. Nothing inside him announced that Divine Ruin had changed. As far as Liam knew, the experiment had moved him, made him sick, and shown him something he did not understand.
Seraphine waited until his focus steadied. "What did you see?"
Liam hesitated. "Something between here and there."
"Describe it."
He told her about the fractures.
"Were they inside anything?" Seraphine asked.
"No."
"What were they breaking?"
"That is the problem. Nothing."
Then Liam mentioned the chain.
Seraphine became completely serious. "A chain?"
"Yes."
"The same one?"
"I don't know."
"Could you see either end?"
"No."
"What was attached to it?"
"Nothing I could see."
"Did you feel the presence from earlier?"
Liam thought carefully.
"No."
Seraphine looked toward the invisible rifts surrounding them. "No second attempt."
Liam pushed himself upright. "I was about to demand one."
"That easy?"
"I nearly fell into my own well after seeing a chain hanging somewhere reality forgot to include. I can survive without the encore."
"Excellent."
They decided to find the surface chain again. Liam wanted to compare what he had seen during Fractured Step with something they could both examine.
On the way, long grooves scarred the black terrain as though something unimaginably heavy had once been dragged across it. Farther on, they passed a collapsed structure too large to have served any ordinary purpose, purple illumination moving beneath foundations Ruined Sight insisted should no longer support themselves.
Eventually, the chain emerged from the darkness.
It remained flawless.
Everything beneath it did not.
The terrain had cracked under its weight. One enormous link rested in a crushed trench, fractures spreading through the landscape around it like a spiderweb.
Liam stared. "It breaks everything around it and still does not have a mark."
"That is one interpretation," Seraphine said.
"You have another?"
"No."
"Then why say that?"
"Professional instinct."
This time they approached the chain as an investigation rather than an impulse, walking beside links that alternately rested above the terrain and vanished beneath it.
The farther they went, the more damaged the world became.
Liam saw invisible rifts multiplying around the chain.
Seraphine watched his gaze move through empty space. "More?"
"A lot more."
"Pointing toward the chain?"
Liam studied them. "Past it."
Eventually the chain descended beneath a vast broken formation where even the purple illumination seemed reluctant to follow.
Seraphine stopped.
Liam did too.
For once, neither needed to argue.
"We turn back here," Seraphine said.
Liam looked toward the darkness swallowing the chain. "Agreed."
That answer made Seraphine glance at him.
"What?"
"I expected resistance."
"I am developing survival instincts."
"Encouraging."
They turned.
After several minutes, Seraphine looked back once at the disappearing chain.
Then she asked, "Would you be willing to do this again?"
Liam glanced at her. "Follow something large enough to anchor a city into complete darkness?"
"I was thinking more generally."
Seraphine explained that Divine Ruin was too large to understand by wandering until exhaustion forced them out. Liam needed time to recover and train between deep expeditions.
"One dedicated exploration every month," she said. "Circumstances permitting."
"Every month?"
"If you want."
Seraphine continued, "This place is too large to understand by rushing through it. And belonging to you does not mean you should have to explore it alone."
Liam was quiet for several steps, then nodded. "Once a month."
"Once a month."
By the time they returned to the personal well, Liam's sense of direction had become easier to trust. Seraphine stopped him before they moved on.
"Check your records once more."
"Why?"
"Because we have changed enough variables today that I would prefer not to discover something new next week and argue about when it happened."
"That sounds disturbingly reasonable."
Liam checked the Major Functions first.
Thirty.
Two unlocked.
Twenty-eight locked.
No change.
Then he looked at the Minor Function category.
He stopped.
Seraphine's posture stiffened immediately. "Liam."
"There's another change."
"What changed?"
Liam opened the record.
MINOR FUNCTIONS: 1
Below it:
MINOR FUNCTION 01
?
STATUS: LOCKED
He stared.
"That was not there before."
Seraphine stepped closer. "Anything else?"
Liam focused.
Beneath the locked Function sat a thin progress display.
Almost empty.
Not completely.
A tiny portion had filled.
"No name," Liam said. "No description. No unlock condition. But there's some kind of bar."
"A bar?"
Liam voluntarily opened that portion of the record to her. Seraphine stared at it.
"You have seen this before?" Liam asked.
"No."
"Of course not."
"Locked Functions do not normally display progress toward unlocking."
"Mine does."
"I can see that."
"What does it measure?"
"I don't know."
"What fills it?"
"I don't know."
"What happens when it fills?"
Seraphine finally looked at him. "I suspect the Function unlocks."
"That was the only answer I already had."
They tried to reconstruct when it had appeared, but too much had happened since the last check: Fractured Step, the strange space between locations, the chain, and the extended exploration. Nothing gave them a clean cause.
Seraphine finally said, "We have correlation and no controlled observation."
"You sound pleased."
"I am not pleased. I am correct."
They started away from the record.
Then Seraphine stopped.
Her expression changed in a way Liam had learned to recognize as preparation rather than hesitation.
She extended one hand toward him.
Liam looked at it. "Why do I feel like this is more dangerous than the chain?"
"Because you are suspicious of paperwork."
"Correct."
"What I am about to offer is entirely your choice," Seraphine said. "You do not owe me anything for hearing it. You will not owe me anything if you accept it. If you refuse, nothing we agreed to today changes."
Liam's humor faded. "What are you offering?"
"An academy sponsorship."
Seraphine continued. "Awakened Academies exist for people whose Blessings require more than ordinary instruction. Control. Function development. Combat application. Strain resistance. Learning how to survive the harmful parts before they control your life."
"Guild sponsorship."
"Usually."
Seraphine said, "I can sponsor you instead."
"In place of a guild?"
"Yes."
Then Liam asked the question underneath every other one.
"Would that keep me out of Facility Forty-Seven?"
Seraphine did not answer carelessly.
"I already think sending you back is unlikely."
"But."
"But an academy accepting you under my sponsorship would give the government a legitimate developmental placement instead of an excuse to decide where an anomaly should be contained."
"How much protection does that actually give me?"
"Enough that returning you to Facility Forty-Seven would become extraordinarily difficult to justify."
Liam waited.
Seraphine met his eyes.
"Close enough to impossible that I am willing to put my name on it."
He looked at her hand.
"What do you get?"
"Nothing you do not choose to give me. If you still want our monthly expeditions, I want to continue them. That is all."
"No contract ownership?"
"No."
"No debt?"
"No."
"You do not decide where I live?"
"No."
"The academy does not get unrestricted access to Divine Ruin?"
"Absolutely not."
"You tell them about my ceiling?"
"No."
"Why?"
Seraphine's hand remained extended.
"Because you have spent enough of your life having help offered with ownership attached."
Liam went still.
Seraphine continued, more quietly, "I am offering you a door. Whether you walk through it is your decision."
For several seconds, Liam looked at her. Then he took her hand.
"If this somehow ends with me repairing ventilation underground again, I am blaming you."
Seraphine closed her hand around his.
"If this ends with you repairing ventilation, I will personally consider the sponsorship a professional failure."
"Good."
For the first time in ten years, Liam had been offered a future without someone else deciding that acceptance meant surrender.