The meeting room held its quiet.
The air remained heavy with the goblin scrolls' implication as if the parchment had released a poison that did not burn the lungs but tightened the mind.
Lucien sat still, watching the angles of the room as if the walls might answer him.
Finally, he asked the simplest question.
"Is your leader here?"
Darian's laugh came out quick, then stopped halfway when he remembered what "here" meant in this conversation.
"No," Darian said. "If the leader were on this planet, we would not have been in trouble in the void."
Kaia leaned closer, lowering her voice as if secrets traveled faster than sound. "Uncle Moltsage has a way to contact him. The leader is still in the Big World."
Lucien paused.
Contact across that distance.
'A message that ignored distance?'
His eyes shifted toward the ceiling as if he could see the invisible network stitched into the planet.
He exhaled once.
Even their methods were frightening.
