When All is Null and Void

Chapter Thirty-Four

Caleb looked down. He wasn't wearing a shirt. Cheeks burning, Caleb covered himself with his arms.

"Why does this happen?" he gestured to his half-naked body and quickly returned his arm.

"It's a side effect of Ringlock, though an unusual one." She leaned closer to Caleb, and he noticed her lack of wrinkles. She was still wearing her own ring, and looked as if she couldn't be any older than thirty.

"You mean it's a side effect of the Void leeching off me," Caleb replied. He'd been thinking about this recently. Trying to understand why he got Ringlock after being in the Void.

Rhea shrugged. "More or less," she replied. "How are things with Danielle?"

"They're good," Caleb nodded, "Yeah, they're great. She's great." He said these words quickly. He was fully aware Rhea had deflected his statement, which meant he had hit a goldmine he needed to dig into a little.

"You like her?" she asked, raising her eyebrows to him.

He parried with a deflection of his own. He wasn't about to blush again in front of the Queen of Time. "What does Danielle have to do with the Void?"

Rhea lifted her eyebrows. "I'm not saying she doesn't, but what makes you think she has anything to do with it at all?"

"Besides the fact that you want me to essentially betray her into your hands? The moment I touched her at the party, we went straight into the Void. I wasn't leading us, and she isn't a Timewalker."

Rhea hummed a quiet noise in the back of her throat. "Astute observation, but based on happenstance."

"When I Hopped earlier today with her, I saw the Void again. The cave I saw with her, the one from the Dream Toxin."

How the ram-rod posture of Rhea James straightened even further, Caleb didn't know.

Her brown eyes filled with sudden interest. "Did you see anything different this time?"

He shook his head. "No, I just saw the cave." Biting his lip, he went on, "Why do you want Danielle?"

Rhea leaned forward and used her fingertips to hold her chin up. "Despite what you think, I'm not a bad person." She held up her hand before Caleb could speak. "I know, a villain always says that. I'm not a villain, I promise. If Danielle is connected to the Void, as I know she is, and you're the one to close the Void for good, it is important for you two to know each other. To work together. Her compliance is incredibly important.

"I won't just kidnap someone, as much as you might think that is the case. I am being patient. The most important things in life don't require hasty fixes. They are imperatively slow burning."

Caleb opened his mouth to speak again, but Rhea stopped him again.

"Danielle is not the key to closing the Void. She's part of the equation, but I don't know all of the factors yet."

"Why is it so important for the Void to be closed?" Caleb asked. Goosebumps slid up his arms from the steady flow of a vent on the ceiling.

"I'm at fault for it even rupturing in the first place," Rhea said. "I need the Void to close to rectify the mistakes that I made. The goal has always been to close the Void. To get rid of Void sickness."

"The Void has to open completely for it to be closed," Caleb said. His teeth wanted to chatter, but he held them fast.

"We all lose things to the Void. Hairpins, wallets. I lost someone, and I've wanted them back since before you were a toddler." She leaned back in her office chair, and the early evening light played against her beautiful skin.