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She hasn't yet made the connection between her emotions and these manifestations. The pressure she described—the tingling in her arms, the tightness in her chest—aligns too closely with the surge that shattered the lightstone. It wasn't conscious. It wasn't controlled. It was reaction.

“She doesn’t speak our language.” Lisandra steps forward, her gaze dissecting Ellie piece by piece. Her tactician’s mind working through possibilities, evaluating threads and advantages. “Her mannerisms are strange. Even wearing our clothing, she moves differently. Who is she, Lord Torran?” Her voice drops. “She’s not from any settlement within Meridian, is she?”

I weigh each response, calculating the cost of revelation against the cost of concealment. Once, I would have revealed nothing. Information was a currency too precious to spend without necessity. But these people have held faith in my absence. Trust demands some measure of truth, and suspicion left unanswered will only grow.

“No, she’s not.” I meet each of their gazes in turn, waiting until each one drops before moving on. A small assertion of dominance that costs nothing but yields much. “She comes from beyond our realm entirely.”

The revelation sends a ripple of reaction through the room. Telren’s eyes narrow, searching. Lorath’s hand tightens on her weapon. The younger leaders exchange uneasy glances, superstition flickering across hardened faces.

“From beyond the Great Divide?” asks one.

“From beyond any boundary known to our world.” I allow a rare note of wonder to enter my voice, a calculated move to build their acceptance. “Her home is a place called Chicago, a city in a realm where magic as we understand it doesn’t exist.”

Lisandra rises slowly, eyes never leaving Ellie. “She walked between worlds?”

I don’t confirm or deny her interpretation. It’s more useful to let them build their own narratives. “She answered my summoning. A call I sent as the final wards closed, searching for anyone who might help me escape.”

“And it found someone from another world entirely?” Telren strokes his beard, surprise replacing suspicion. “Extraordinary.”

“That might explain why she affects magic strangely,” Neris adds, more thoughtful than fearful. “If she’s outside our natural laws?—”

“It explains nothing!” Lorath’s voice rises, her glare burning into Ellie. The tenuous calm threatens to shatter. “It only raises more questions. Whyher? What connection could possibly exist between her and our world?”

As Lorath’s intensity grows, the atmosphere in the room shifts. The air around Ellie shimmers like heat rising from summer stones. Now that I'm watching for it, I can sense the gathering of power—drawn toward her like iron filings to a lodestone, shaping itself around her without conscious direction. Magic responding to emotion as naturally as shadow follows light.

Just as it responded to mine, before I learned control.

“Whether you believe it or not,” I cut in, steering away fromdangerous speculation, “her arrival made it possible for me to leave a place designed to be inescapable. That alone makes her valuable to our cause.”

“And the prophecy?” Telren asks. “The dreams and visions people have reported, about a stranger who walks between worlds?”

I stiffen slightly. Prophecies shape expectations. They blind people to simpler truths. They invite action based on what should never be trusted.

“I remain focused on what I have personally witnessed.” My voice is flat. “Dreams and prophecies are interpreted after the fact. They predict nothing.”

Lisandra moves around the table, stopping in front of Ellie. She doesn't touch her—only studies her, the way a soldier sizes up the weakness in a battlefield.

“Whatever she is, her presence presents dangers. The Authority knows you’ve escaped. They’re already hunting you. If they discover someone with unpredictable abilities travels at your side …”

Ellie leans toward me, her frustration clear in the tension of her body. “What are they saying about me?”

“They're deciding what your presence means for the Veinwardens.” I simplify the debate. “What just happened with the lightstone suggests possibilities they hadn’t considered.”

“I don’t have magic.” Her protest comes weaker this time. “These things just …happen. I’m not doing them deliberately.”

“What did she say?” Lisandra asks.

“She claims no control. She says the manifestations are not deliberate.”

Neris gives a low, thoughtful laugh. “That’s how it used to begin.Before the purges. When Veinbloods still thrived. Through emotion. Through need.”

Lisandra nods. “Deliberate or not, her existence changes things. If the Authority learns of her?—”

This sobers the gathering immediately. If the Authority discovers someone capable of affecting magic despite their systematic elimination of the bloodlines, their response would be swift and ruthless.

“She is under my protection. I owe her a debt in return for the part she played in releasing me. She stands under the Vein’s shield. No one outside this room is to know anything of what you’ve seen or heard tonight.” I meet each of their gazes, one by one, and they lower their eyes in turn. Even Lorath. “Is that understood?”

My word asVareth’el et’Varinremains absolute, despite my long absence. Some habits of command never fade.