Chapter 8 · Loopbound - Chapter 8: His Mother's Countdown

The speakers are still echoing her name when I hit the restricted archive door.

Vera's already inside, pulling books off the emergency shelf. The one she told me about three loops ago. The one that's supposed to have the counter-sigil for a protection ward keyed to bloodline.

"He knows," I say. "Nolan knows about her."

Vera doesn't look up. "Yeah. He's been waiting for you to figure it out."

My hands are shaking. I can still hear his voice through the PA system, calm and surgical. *Elara Ash. She's been here the whole time. And if you want to see her, Callum, you know what you have to do.*

I grab the book Vera's holding. It's old. Smells like smoke and something metallic. The pages are hand-copied, margins full of notes in three different languages.

"What do I have to do?" I ask.

Vera finally looks at me. Her face is pale. "Break the protection your mother put on the core. The one that's been keeping Nolan from finishing his experiment for twenty years."

"And if I break it?"

"Then whatever she trapped in there gets out."

I stare at the page she's opened. There's a diagram.