Cassius's jaw tightened, his fingers curling against the edge of the table. The present blurred around him, replaced by the weight of a past that pressed like iron against his chest. Memories rose unbidden, not as images but as sensations—the smell of chemical solvents, the hum of old laboratory equipment, the low voice of Elias explaining theories that made the air feel electric.
He had been so young then.
He could still see the boy he once was, trailing after Elias down dim corridors lined with chalkboards and microscopes. Papers drifted across benches like fallen leaves. Glass tubes glowed faintly under dull lights. It had been a hidden world, their world, where the impossible became simply another formula to solve.
Elias had been the center of it. A steady voice, unyielding and somehow gentle all at once. He had a way of explaining the extraordinary as if it were inevitable. Cassius had hung on every word, half believing Elias was some kind of prophet.
