The teleport station deposited them at the King's front gate, and Kesiah talked him through royal etiquette on the way in — unnecessary, as it turned out, because the palace's tone was nothing like Olympia's formal warmth. It was something cooler. More contained.
The throne room reflected this. The architecture was precise rather than grand, the stone pale and unornamented, built by people who considered function the highest form of aesthetic. Levi waited with Kesiah in the quiet of it and felt the cold coming through the walls.
The King entered.
The cold came in with him — not temperature, something else. The specific quality of a person who had spent a long time in difficult circumstances and had built their composure so thoroughly that it had become their natural atmosphere. King Max was not large. He was not visually imposing. But the room adjusted when he entered it in the way rooms adjusted to people who had earned that response through long experience.
"Dr Kesiah," he said. "Good to see you again. Better circumstances this time."
"Marginally," said Kesiah. "This is Levi Baron — one of the patients Melissa brought to me."
The King looked at Levi with the particular attention of someone who had been told things about a person and was now updating the account from the primary source. "The third member of the trio," he said. "Melissa spoke of you."
"Your majesty," said Levi. "I only have one question right now. Where are my teammates?"
Something moved in the King's expression — not warmth exactly, but recognition. The directness of someone who knew what they needed and asked for it rather than approaching it sideways. "They're at the R.K Squad HQ. I'll have someone take you." He paused. "All your other questions will be answered. Give me time."
"Yes sir," said Levi.
The King turned and left. Levi watched him go and thought: this is a man carrying something. He didn't know what yet. He filed it.
Kesiah looked at him from the side. "You're handling this better than I expected," she said. "Your friends both broke down when they got the news. You seem — present."
"When my mother died I didn't have time to mourn her," Levi said. "I feel the same way now. I need to be steady for them. I can't afford to fall apart."
"Crying doesn't make you weak," Kesiah said.
"I know," he said. "But it won't make things better either. And I have things to do." He looked at her steadily. "I'll find a way to process it. Just not right now."
Kesiah was quiet. She had seen this before — the specific suppression of someone who had learned early that grief was a luxury the circumstances didn't permit. She understood why he was doing it. She also understood what happened when it finally ran out of places to go. She hoped he had people around him when that happened.
She was fairly sure he would.
The King returned with a man beside him — broad-shouldered, practical-looking, with the focused economy of movement that came from years of field work. "This is Captain Curwyn Jankeys. He runs the R.K Squad. He'll take you to your friends."
"Thank you, your majesty," said Levi. He turned to Kesiah. "Thank you. For everything."
"Take care of those organs," she said.
He almost smiled. He left with Curwyn.
✦ ✦ ✦
"How are they," Levi asked, as soon as they were clear of the throne room.
Curwyn was quiet for a moment — the pause of someone deciding how much to say and concluding that the full version was the right version. "Not well. Kesiah told you the situation?"
"She did."
"Then you know about the chamber. What she might not have told you is that we've tried everything — talking through the door, sending different people in. She can't hear any of it right now. We're not forcing it. The chamber can hold whatever she generates, so we've been letting her burn through it on her own timeline." He paused. "She's been in there since day two."
"And Priscilla."
"Trickier." Curwyn shook his head slightly. "She's not destroying anything. But that corridor — two of my people won't go near it anymore. One got a nosebleed just standing outside the door. Another said it felt like something was pressing on her chest." He glanced at Levi. "She's been taking her meals though. Whoever leaves the tray finds it gone when they check. So she's present enough for that."
"She's eating," said Levi. "That's something."
"That's what I told myself," said Curwyn. He didn't sound entirely convinced.
The R.K HQ looked more like a mansion than a military installation — which probably served some purpose Levi didn't have the context to understand yet. Curwyn led him straight down to the lower level without stopping, the corridor growing warmer with each step. Not the ambient warmth of a heated building. The specific concentrated heat of something held barely in check.
He stopped outside a heavy door. The edges of it were scorched. Through it, muffled but audible, came a sound — rhythmic, mechanical, without pause. Fists against ultimatium, landing over and over with the relentlessness of something that had stopped being a choice and become a condition.
"She's been at it since she went in," said Curwyn. He looked at Levi with something that might have been relief and might have been doubt. "You want to go in?"
"Yes," said Levi.
Curwyn unlocked the door and stepped back.
✦ ✦ ✦
The heat hit first — not scorching but total, the kind that pressed against the skin and made the air thick and close. The chamber was large, the ultimatium pillar at its centre scored and dented from days of sustained punishment.
Sylvia was in front of it.
Her flames were blue-white and uneven, flaring and guttering in irregular patterns, her hair wild. She was throwing punch after punch after punch with the mechanical relentlessness of someone who had stopped thinking and was running on something underneath thought. Not training. Not anger exactly. Something more fundamental than anger.
Levi walked in. He closed the door behind him.
She didn't notice him. Her fists kept moving, her breathing ragged and furious, and as he got closer he could hear what she was saying — not words, just the broken shape of a sentence repeated until the words had lost their meaning. *There's no way. There's no way. There's no way.*
He stood behind her for a moment.
He didn't reach for her. He didn't say her name. He sat down on the scorched floor cross-legged, about two metres back, and waited.
It took a while. Her punches slowed first — small decrements, barely perceptible, but present. Then her breathing started catching differently. Then she stopped with her fist against the pillar and her forehead dropped forward to rest against it. Her flames guttered and flared, guttered and flared.
"There's no way," she said. Out loud this time. Directed at something.
"I know," said Levi.
Sylvia spun around.
The look on her face moved through three states in about one second: shock, then something cracking open behind the shock, then the denial surging back up like a reflex to cover it. "You're finally awake," she said, and her voice came out wrong — too tight, too controlled. "Good. Tell them they're lying. Tell them what they're saying about my mum isn't true because it can't be, she's the strongest person alive, she's —"
"Sylvia," said Levi quietly.
"Don't," she said. Her flames flared. "Don't you dare say it."
He didn't say anything. He looked at her, and she looked back at him, and the silence held everything that neither of them had words for yet. Her flames rose and trembled and rose again, and then all at once they collapsed — and Sylvia crumpled with them. Not falling. Just folding inward, sliding down to the floor with her back against the pillar and her hands over her face.
The sounds she made weren't words.
Levi crossed the distance and sat beside her on the scorched floor and let her fall apart properly — without trying to stop it or shape it or move it toward something more manageable. He stayed there a long time.
When it finally quieted — not healed, not resolved, just emptied out for now — Sylvia lifted her head and stared at the far wall. Her flames were gone. Her eyes were red and exhausted.
"How," she said. Just that.
"I don't know," said Levi. "I honestly just don't know."
A long silence.
"She told me once that she didn't think she'd make it to the end," said Sylvia quietly. "I thought she was being dramatic."
"She told me something similar," said Levi.
Sylvia closed her eyes. "She knew."
"Maybe," said Levi. "Or maybe she just knew the world well enough to prepare for the worst." He paused. "Either way, she prepared us. That wasn't an accident."
Sylvia said nothing for a while. Then: "Priscilla."
"I'm going to her next."
"Is she okay?"
"No," said Levi. "But she will be."
Sylvia nodded slowly. She looked at the dented, scorched pillar beside her. "I did a number on this thing."
"You really did."
She looked at the room. "...Sorry about your floor," she said, to no one in particular.
It surprised a sound out of Levi that was almost a laugh. "Stay here," he said. "I'll be back."