Inside the Europol office in Geneva Glen Lyon's overwhelming silence seemed dreamlike—a chilling magnetic dream. The rationale behind the Liber Ignaviae was an abyss, for Devon. Effort is a condition. Inactivity is the norm. This revealed all. That was what rendered it so terrifying.
Pamela Pauline heard his update, from Scotland her expression a veneer of calm gradually breaking apart. "A stone? A gravity well? Duncan my board demands arrests, not… concepts."
"You cannot detain a law " Devon responded, his tone empty. ". You can locate its central point. The slate serves as the lens. If we discover it we break the conjunction."
"Based on what? The word of a broken archivist and a cult lieutenant?"
Devon remained silent. He laid out high-definition photos of the four crime locations, on the table: Brussels, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Amsterdam. He had been examining them for days perceiving disorder.. Now following the archive and the glen he perceived not separate art pieces but a map.
"We've misunderstood it " he remarked, to himself rather than, to Pamela. "We interpreted it as a language. Javier referred to it as a calculus.. It's likewise a map."
He opened a map of Western Europe. "Brussels." He dropped a pin. "Frankfurt." Another pin. "Strasbourg." A third one. "Amsterdam." A fourth. He linked them on the display. Together they created a uneven diamond shape.
"That's not accurate " Pamela sneered.
"It's not earthly " Devon responded, a memory awakening. He remembered Javier's talks about 'apotropaic symbols'—signs employed for safeguarding for repelling harm. He launched a query narrowing down to symbols representing 'binding' or 'containment', in occult maps.
There it appeared. Within a 16th-century grimoire about geomancy—the practice of interpreting significance in land shapes—he discovered it. A symbol the same as a central element, from Kale Kane's Brussels flat: a spiral intersected by a straight line at its midpoint. The inscription stated: "Nodus Silentii" – The Binding Node of Silence.
His heart started to race a weary beat, against his chest. He singled out that emblem from every crime scene picture. In each one it showed variations. In Brussels the line was briefer. In Amsterdam it bent. They weren't replicating the symbol. They were modifying it.
"They're not merely sketching the Calculus " he whispered. "They're illustrating a place's manifestation of the Calculus. They are charting the ' lines.' Every crime scene serves as a surveyor's reference. They have been adjusting the formula for spots, on a… a metaphysical grid."
He placed the modified symbols over their matching city markers on his map. Utilizing the principles of the Lethargic Calculus—such, as the dissipation operator and the friction coefficient—he started to infer. If these four locations served as fixed points outlining a region of "growing fatigue," where would the core of that region lie? Where would the force be most intense?
His program processed the geometry. The inference lines, determined not by proximity but by significance, by the sharpness of the spiral's bend and the tilt of the bisecting line started to come together. They did not intersect in Glen Lyon. That was a magnifier, a resonator. They merged at another location situated inside the diamond formed by the four cities.
The map displayed the outcome, with computerized precision. A blinking dot.
Luxembourg City.
"The epicenter " Devon murmured. "It's not the location of the ritual itself. It's where the impact will concentrate. The 'Basin'… they're making the channel, in Scotland. The sinkhole… it's right here." He indicated the spot. "A monetary and administrative center. A site of conceptual ambition. Their goal is to halt the core of the mechanism."
Pamela remained quiet gazing at the map. The ridiculousness was shifting into a likelihood. "What's in Luxembourg?"
Devon had already begun investigating matching the city against Flavio's identified interests and Benjamin's records. He located it in a city archive: The Musée de l'Histoire de la Pensée Économique. The Museum of the History of Economic Thought. At present it featured an exhibit: "The Fatigue of Progress: Critical Perspectives, on Growth."
The listed keynote speaker for the exhibition's closing symposium, two days from now: Dr. L. Felicity. A pseudonym. An anagram. Fronie Felicity. The cult's ritualist.
"They aren't concealing themselves " Devon remarked, a respect in his voice. "They're delivering a lecture. They intend to showcase their thesis before economists, philosophers and policy-makers. The definitive recruitment effort. Whereas the ceremony in Scotland appeals to the spirit the address in Luxembourg will clarify the reasons, behind it. They'll render the silence intellectually valid. Unavoidable."
He rose, a intense urgency piercing his weariness. "The slate will be in Scotland, for the conjunction.. The meaning of the conjunction will be broadcast from Luxembourg. We need to split resources."
Pamela ultimately agreed, her mindset grasping a concrete course of action. "I'll head a group to Luxembourg. We'll cut off this lecture apprehend Fronie Felicity. You " she locked eyes with him "you along, with a squad will return to Scotland. Locate that slate. Halt whatever operation they have on that mountain."
Devon nodded in agreement. The map continued to captivate him. The design was unmistakable at this point. The cult had marked a target on the heart of Europe with Luxembourg as the center. Halting the ritual in Scotland could be compared to severing a wire on a bomb. However interrupting the transmission in Luxembourg was akin, to disabling the core ideology itself.
As he was getting ready to go his encrypted phone vibrated. A message arrived from a Swiss number. It was a voice recording lasting only a few seconds. He listened to it.
A woman's voice spoke, delicate and quivering with a hollow tranquility. "They revealed the basin to me. At its base I glimpsed my love, for the world. It appeared tiny there. It was serenity." A break, an exhale. "Inform the analyst… the anchor isn't defiance. Love is what picks the wound. He will comprehend."
It was Veronica Vigdis. The rescued victim, from Geneva. Her message, shaped by the cult's indoctrination was contradictory. Love that embraces the injury. It resembled the ' fighter.' It resembled insanity.
However it was the rebuttal he possessed against the perfect lethal reasoning of the map. The Lethargic Calculus resolved the conclusion of suffering. What did Veronica's love determine? Merely additional. Consequently a greater possibility of anguish.
He packed his gear for Scotland, the coordinates of the glen a lodestone in his mind. The pattern was deciphered. The battlefield was drawn. In Luxembourg, Pamela would fight the idea. In Glen Lyon, he would have to fight the gravity itself. And the only weapon he seemed to have was a cryptic, painful love he wasn't sure he still possessed.