POV: Theodore
The red emergency lights blinked off.
In their absence, silence reclaimed the room — not peace, but the deep, padded hush of something holding its breath. No chimes. No whirring vents. Only the hum of arcane servers powering down, and a faint pulse from the leyline stabilizer deep under the floor.
Theodore stood in the center like a glacier carved in iron — immovable, silent, watchful.
His workspace matched his presence:
Obsidian-lined walls, embedded with kinetic ward runes etched so finely they looked like veins.
No art. No desk trinkets. No loose files. Just reinforced shelving that sealed shut with silent biometric locks.
Low amber underlighting at foot level. The ceiling cast a soft, diffused glow calibrated for low glare — easy on the eyes for long nights.
There were no visible chairs except his own — a heavily reinforced arcane-seat hybrid shaped for his size and posture. No clutter. Nothing soft. Nothing that invited lingering.
The air smelled of pine sap, faintly smudged herbs, and something colder — steel, maybe. Or snow on stone. It didn't comfort. It cleared the senses.
A heavily warded server column pulsed in the corner — triple-locked behind spells no one else on this floor could open.
In front of him, three curved monitors hovered on enchanted pivots, each displaying a separate feed: leyline tremors, internal shield flux, mana-core readings. Holo-feeds from elevator shafts, corridor wards, and long-range scan nodes flickered through their loop.
He moved toward the console, not with urgency — with precision. His coat didn't even rustle.
"Log the alert," he said, low and clipped. "Ghost sweep. Discreet trace. Lock protocol visibility to Team Omega only."
Only two staff responded.
Bren — a sharp-eyed witch analyst in a graphite turtleneck, braid pinned like a coiled whip behind her head. She moved like she was allergic to hesitation.
And Korrin — a stoic vampiric technician with silver-ringed eyes, his fingers already sliding across a three-screen diagnostic panel in complete silence.
At the far end, a newer recruit peeked nervously into the observation pit — tall, pale, still wearing his badge on a lanyard like a freshman. The moment Theodore turned slightly toward the feeds, the kid dropped his rune calibrator with a clatter and went rigid.
Bren didn't even glance up. "Relax. He doesn't bite."
The kid stammered, "You sure?"
"Absolutely," Korrin replied, not missing a keystroke. "He just picks you up like furniture if you pass out. Happened to me once."
Bren added, "He bandaged my arm last month and made tea. Didn't even blink."
The kid blinked back. "He made tea?"
Theodore, still facing the feeds, said flatly, "You left it in the west archive locker. It's still warm-sealed."
The room went silent again — a beat. Then Korrin gave a soft chuckle.
"Classic."
Bren grinned. "He's a cryptid with manners."
The kid muttered, "He's Baymax with biceps."
They got back to work.
Theodore didn't react.
Instead, he pulled up the file Kaiden had forwarded.
Three glitches. All precisely at 3:47 a.m.
All lasting exactly 3.5 seconds.
All logged inside Elysium-controlled internal zones.
This one, just now, in Sector Delta.
He began cross-referencing:
— External weather
— Internal mana core fluctuations
— Surveillance buffer cycles
— Staff access logs
Everything came back green.
Too green.
His jaw flexed — not anger. Alignment.
He slid his hand over the glyph-carved edge of the control screen and added a new overlay: raw mana flow, stripped of formatting. Just the unfiltered pulses of leylines reacting to real-time movement.
And something flickered.
Not data.
Absence.
Like the air shifted when it shouldn't have.
"Like something," he muttered, "was stepping into the space between seconds."
Bren paused her coding.
Korrin stopped typing.
The new recruit opened his mouth. "Is… that a metaphor, or—?"
"No," Bren said quietly, eyes still on her screen. "That's Theo being poetic. Which means it's bad."
He didn't answer.
He was already tracing it backward.
---
One of the flagged sectors: 04.
A hallway between the cryo-vaults and the old archive cold-storage. No cameras. No automated sweep runes. No foot traffic in over a year.
It was a corridor no one had reason to walk.
So, of course, Theodore walked it.
He didn't bring backup. He didn't issue orders.
He didn't need to.
The deeper levels of Elysium were colder than the rest of the tower — built for shielded quarantine and power redirection. The air was dry, the floors matte steel. Runes thrummed at every third panel — still active, still tuned, but quiet.
The door to Sector 04's bypass corridor didn't open easily.
He placed a hand flat against the rune seal — and the lock resisted. Not for long. Just long enough to tell him it shouldn't.
Inside, the corridor was still and silent.
He didn't move quickly. He didn't need to.
Then he stopped.
A scent.
Like the light smell of a freshly snuffed out a candle
Barely there.
Wrong.
His nostrils flared once.
Then he saw it.
Behind a maintenance panel — almost hidden.
A single, old-class displacement rune.
Not tripped. Not broken.
Just… fading.
Faint heat still radiated from the glyph lines. It had been used within the last hour.
He scanned it, logged the signature, and uploaded it to his private slate.
He didn't notify anyone.
Then—
Footsteps.
He didn't turn.
"Didn't expect anyone down here," said a voice.
Captain Marek.
Rolled sleeves. Clipboard. The kind of smile that belonged to someone who never had to lie because everyone already believed him.
"Chillers started leeching again. We rerouted some energy lines yesterday — supposed to balance things out. Probably made a few doors sticky."
Theodore nodded once.
Marek walked closer, casually glancing around.
"You good down here? Thought you didn't like cold floors."
Silence.
Then, that smile again. "No worries. You're probably already five steps ahead."
He gave a small salute with the clipboard and turned, walking back down the corridor.
Theodore didn't follow.
He waited until the footsteps faded.
Then looked back at the wall. The glyph. The panel.
He tapped his slate and added a new entry:
> [Sector 04] — Priority Flag: Unknown Arcane Residue
Mark: Category A. Silence in the System.
Then, quietly, with no fanfare, he walked away.
The vault behind him sealed with a click that sounded far too loud for a corridor no one remembered.
---
Later, long after Marek was gone and the glyph had faded behind vault-thick walls, Theodore sat back at his console. Alone now, the silence didn't feel like insulation — it felt like pressure. The kind that settled behind the ribs and made the heart forget its rhythm.
His hand moved up, absently brushing over the front of his chest.
Right where her scent lingered.
Vanilla and warmth. The kind of warmth you didn't notice until it was gone.
Flash —
Her kitchen.
Late.
He hadn't even realized how long he'd been sitting there. Silent. Tense. Staring at nothing.
And then — no words. No small talk. No judgment.
Just Seraphine's hands — gentle but certain — placing a blanket over his shoulders. Like she'd done it a thousand times. Like she'd known he wouldn't pull away.
His breath hadn't left him because of panic.
It had stilled… because for once, he didn't need to brace.
"I knew peace when she was near." he mused
The console pinged — low and soft. He shut it down without glancing at it.
---
A few hours later…
The elevator to the underground garage let out its familiar low ding as Theodore descended to the parking lot.
The air was drier down here. Cold concrete. Fluorescent buzz. The scent of metal and rubber thick in the stillness.
His boots echoed across the floor as he made his way toward his transport — a matte-black Reichhorn Guardian Hummer van hybrid, retrofitted to handle supernatural density and layered with magical damping plates along its frame. One of the few rides big enough for him to fit into without folding his limbs like origami. Reinforced shocks, warded shielding along the windows, and a mana-boosted engine core beneath the hood.
Nothing fancy. But built like him — reliable, unshakeable, quiet.
He paused, glancing toward the far corner of the garage.
Same spot Kaiden had pointed out earlier.
Nothing there.
Nothing he could see.
But his instincts didn't stop twitching.
He slid into the van and drove in silence, letting the familiar weight of night roads and soft growl of tires beneath him smooth his nerves.
He didn't bother checking mirrors.
He knew the thermal cams Kaiden ordered would be active by tomorrow.
---
The hum of the van's engine faded into the distance as Theodore pulled into the underground lot beneath their apartment complex. He parked the Guardian in his usual corner slot — one of the few that could handle the van's reinforced bulk.
The ramp light flickered overhead.
He stepped out in silence, scanning the edges of the garage.
The elevator dinged as he approached it.
He held the door open for the other two heading in.
The first: a tall, striking figure with lavender-purple hair and golden, reptilian eyes — the dragon shifter. His hair was swept back in styled layers, like polished obsidian under violet firelight. His skin shimmered faintly with a bronzed tone, scales barely visible around the collar of his high black coat. Elegant gold jewelry adorned his neck and ears — minimal, but regal. Every step he took sounded intentional, as if gravity moved differently around him.
The second was a male fae, dark-skinned and refined, with black curly locs combed back. He wore layered clothing in muted greys and smoke-like fabric that shimmered when he moved. His sharp cheekbones gave him a foxlike look — quiet, but not forgettable. There was a stillness in him that didn't feel shy. Just... observant.
Theodore stepped to the far back of the elevator — a familiar habit. The small space was never really built for his frame, and he refused to loom.
They didn't speak. Neither did he.
But something unsettled him.
No floor buttons were pressed.
Only Floor 26 glowed faintly on the panel.
The entire ride up, no one touched anything.
He'd never seen these two in the building before.
But they didn't look lost.
They looked like they were... waiting.
The elevator opened.
They stepped out — not together, not apart. No nods. No acknowledgment.
Didn't talk. Didn't glance.
They just stood there for a beat.
Like they were… orienting. Searching.
And then — without a word — they all began to walk. Slow. Steady.
Toward apartment 26C.
They didn't knock.
They didn't even look directly at the door.
They just... hovered.
Like they were waiting for a sign. A pull. An answer to a question they hadn't admitted asking.
Theodore stood alone in the elevator a moment longer.
His eyes tracked them as he walked out
Not with suspicion.
With… curiosity.
Theodore's fingers twitched — just once — before he quietly stepped out of the elevator and into the shared apartment — the one he, Kaiden, and Zaire used when not sleeping in Elysium quarters, locking the door behind him with a quiet click.
But instead of heading deeper in, he paused by the front door.
But he didn't go deep inside.
He stayed near the front door, coat still on, eyes fixed to the hallway just beyond the peephole.
He didn't breathe loud.
He didn't pace.
He just… waited.
If she needed help,
he'd be the first thing between her and whatever had just arrived.