Liam is standing in the garden, under direct sunlight. To anyone else, he looks like a man enjoying the warmth after two weeks without it. To Linus, he looks like a man carrying something very heavy.
"Hey." Linus approaches. "Are you alright?"
"No." Liam answers, without turning his head.
"Are you blaming yourself?"
Liam scoffs and turns to face him. "You know damn well I am, Dad. It was my fault she is unconscious right now. My fault we needed her mana in the first place. We kept drawing on her, kept pushing, when she had no access to it herself."
His voice climbs as he speaks, until the last word comes out as something close to a shout.
"She almost died." His voice drops to barely above a whisper.
"Because of me." He adds.
"Because of my incompetence." He chokes on the last word.
Linus takes a breath. Liam is his son, and in many ways he is exactly like Linus. But he is also Miranda's son. His emotions have a way of getting ahead of him.
