"Ryo, Llewellyn," Roan said, before pivoting immediately toward Penguin, looking particularly delighted to see him. He kneeled down to pet him. "Nice to see you! Give the others a moment, I think Gilded just figured out something."
Figured out what?
A few moments later, Tiernan also came to welcome us, looking excited.
"Remember that artifact we talked about the first time you came here?" he asked me. "The one that refused to yeolate?"
Was it the one that had caught Penguin's attention?
"Gilded asked if he could run some experiments. We were at a dead end with it and had nothing to lose, so we let him."
"So that's what he's doing," Llewellyn said, eyeing him.
"He has some theories about using crystals," Tiernan said. "We'd never even thought of that, to be honest. Anyway, it seems to be doing something. It'll be a hassle to try and replicate it though." He rubbed his forehead. "He's not using the System at all."
My gaze moved back to Gilded. He was still channeling Magic into the artifact with lots of crystals arranged around him. He had a notebook open to his right and occasionally jotted things down, frowning.
Tiernan followed my gaze. "He's been at it for three hours straight, but he won't explain what he's doing. He just keeps adjusting the crystals. Yuè Zhōu tried to map his Magic patterns—" He gestured to a corner where Yuè Zhōu was sharing a tablet with Shea. "—but no luck. It seems to be all instinct."
Penguin waddled closer, chittering curiously. Gilded's eyes darted to him and his right hand reached out to pat him briefly, before going back to scribbling.
Well.
Penguin chirped, pleased, and sat down to observe.
I crouched down next to him.
"Don't touch anything," Gilded said, still scribbling, not even bothering to look up. "And try not to die again while I'm present."
"Very funny," I said.
"He has a point," Llewellyn said, coming to stand behind me.
"Hey," I said, looking up at him. "What side are you on, exactly?"
Llewellyn's mouth twitched.
"It won't take me long," Gilded said. "Go somewhere else for now. Shoo."
Hey now.
"Penguin can stay," Gilded added after a moment and Penguin chirped happily.
Honestly.
Ah well. I did owe him my life after all. Twice. I got up and went back to the TAPESTRY guys.
"We've been documenting everything," Roan said, showing me his tablet. "But we're just guessing. Gilded won't explain the theory."
"Because there isn't one," Gilded called flatly. "I'm just listening to the artifact and the crystals and adjusting until they stop fighting each other and the artifact can yeolate."
"Remind me what yeolation is, exactly?" I asked Tiernan.
"Oh," Tiernan said. "Yes, of course. Yeolation refers to the reactivation or emergence of stable magical behavior in an artifact. It generally follows recovery and triage. It occurs after suppression has ended, when the object's magic reawakens."
"So basically you found this artifact, suppressed its Magic to get rid of the Destabilization and it refused to wake up again?"
"Sort of," Tiernan said. "We recovered it with a containment box, managed to suppress it, started the recovery process, but the triage failed spectacularly. Nothing we did worked, and when we tried to start the yeolation process regardless, on the basis that the Destabilization had been fixed, the artifact refused to yeolate."
"Doesn't that imply a level of sentience?" Llewellyn said. "Artifacts usually don't refuse to do anything."
"It's not more sentient than a crystal is," Gilded interjected from his position on the floor. "But also not less. Which is why this was a stroke of genius."
"So you're just… tuning them?" Yuè Zhōu said, frowning. He went back to tapping on his tablet.
"This is fascinating," Llewellyn said, "but it's not why we're here."
Oh, right!
"The Alliance?" Tiernan said when we explained.
"Those assholes," Shea interjected, annoyed.
My feelings precisely.
"We don't know much more than what we've shared," Tiernan said. "After the auction, I handed the Alliance members we captured over to KARMA and got a lecture from Detective Ó Néill about half-destroying the ballroom. Then Ó Lochlainn stepped in and said if Ó Néill had just followed his cue instead of his compliance binder they'd have been there forty minutes earlier and we wouldn't have had to fight them ourselves—"
Shea scoffed.
"—and they took them away. Later we found out that half of them had been handed to the police, while the other half had been released. Including Baugh, of course. And… We've heard the rest from Phelan."
"Right," Llewellyn said.
Fuck. That was true. It'd all happened at The Rusty Chalice, so… of course they would know about the attack and Penguin incinerating Baugh.
There was a television on in a corner. A news cycle was currently on and suddenly it cut to—
"Llewellyn!" I said.
Llewellyn looked at me, startled, and followed my gaze.
"What the—" Tiernan said, rushing to grab the remote and turn the volume up.
Baugh was on screen, answering questions from a reporter.
The timing of this appearance was making my head spin, but also, the date at the top right indicated this was from today! What the fuck?!
We all froze as if we'd seen a ghost.
Even Gilded had snapped his head around to stare at the TV, before realizing what he'd been doing and cursing under his breath as he tried to salvage his work.
"That must be AI, right?" Roan said, looking similarly baffled.
"Would the news channel use AI?" I asked.
I tried to think back to the attack. What had I thought back then? He was gone so thoroughly not even a speck of ash was left.
"Holy shit," I said. "He teleported away."
How the fuck hadn't we noticed?! Not even Llewellyn and Gilded, with their Magic levels?!
There was a shrieking chirp. Fuck. Penguin hadn't been okay after the whole Baugh thing.
My eyes went to Penguin and found him staring at the TV, eyes wide in shock.
Shit.