Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game

The tremors ceased for a while, giving off a feeling of calm before a storm.

The silence that followed was heavier than the shaking had ever been. It pressed against their eardrums and sank into their bones, an oppressive stillness that made everyone glance around as if expecting something, anything, to lunge from the darkness.

Sarissa’s fingers curled tighter around the shard.

"You’re serious..." She said after a while. Her voice was lower now, touched with something almost reverent as she looked at the fragment. "You’re really asking me to come with you to the bottom of that dungeon..."

"I’m not just asking. I’m trusting." Miles didn’t blink.

Sarissa turned the shard over in her palm. Now that she’d attuned to it, after the temporary transfer was truly complete, however briefly, she could feel the weight of it, like a lock waiting for its key.

Like a door that Miles had already begun to open.

"I need to think." She said.

"You’ve already decided." Miles replied softly. "But take the moment, I’ll wait."

Sarissa gave him one last unreadable look and walked to the far end of the study, where the flickering lights didn’t reach. There, she sank to a knee beside one of the ancient shelves and ran her fingers over the dusty spines, not seeing the books at all.

Diego looked back and forth between the two of them like a spectator at a tennis match.