Legacy to Zero

25: When Having a Secret Only Raises More Questions

Lars

Staring at the blank screen of my laptop, my hand was static. One day into my study week break, and I already wanted to push through my assignments.

My shoulders ached from the constant walking, but getting new muscles wasn't as painful as I thought, even if they were in places I didn't know I could get muscles.

I sighed, clicking on the upper corner of the screen to fix the default settings on the presentation I needed to finish before the week was over. Then I started to transfer my notes into bullet points.

It was a lot like what I'd been doing for the squadron, only related to old Rynnis linguistics and not Harlow. A nice change of pace when Reid's notes on the archives were taking up a lot of brain space. If Reid had let me come, I would have asked more questions about the contents, but alas, what he'd given me was his summary.

I copied the presentation into the slideshow and finally allowed myself to check Reid's notes. His handwriting was a light scratch against the screen that I'd already read dozens of times. But a certain section caught my eye.

Rachna had a particular location where the split happened—to check? Says the archives are written in code and narrowed to two places, one in town and the other unsure (Line?).

My brow furrowed. I'd heard that word before in lectures about old Rynnis terms. Scrolling back through my class notes, I did a quick search for the term. Whoever had originally transcribed the archives had done it correctly, but the meaning had changed. Line in Rynnis can also be translated as boundary.

Which meant what?

Grabbing my phone, I flipped it over to check my texts. A few scattered posts on Luna, an update text from Felicity, and another from Taylor. The latter was where my eyes floated first. She'd said, Coming your way this afternoon! Dex has got work to do installing Ethernet cables, so we'll probably be there around six or seven.

In the meantime, I had some scouting North wanted me to do. More busywork than anything, but in a strange way, I needed to fly, and he understood that. After I opened my window, I transformed into my bird form, pointed my beak through the gap and soared upward.

The location North had shown me was another dot on his map. A stopping place where Harlow used to be, but hadn't stayed for long.

Haryun expanded below my wings. The wind level meant I didn't have to bat against the current much. As the cityscape sprawled, colours sprouting from the buildings with magic across the sky like stardust, I let the breeze take me to the mall.

Harlow's mother had once lived in the housing below it, which was where my knowledge of Eidra Neale started and ended. I hadn't met her. She was but a periphery in the life Harlow had left. Something I was questioning now.

Returning to normal, I crossed through the first-level floor. Polished white walls and atrium ceilings awash with light enveloped me. The mall was probably the first place I was taking Dex. It was a lot like home—more recently built, as though a sorcerer had visited the outer-cities and come back to make it. Yet, the living plant wall in the corner, the apartments below, and the travelling coins in the fountain sprinkled with magic made me smile.

On the walk past the fountain, though, I stopped short. A Prismatrix sorcerer in a black suit and matching gloves encrusted with the logo sat on the marble. Strewn around them were reusable grocery bags and boxes upon boxes of food—mostly fruit and vegetables, drinks in glass bottles and jugs to refill a water cooler.