The inn room became a laboratory.
Not the kind with glass tubes and bubbling liquids. The kind with a man sitting cross-legged on a bed, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees, doing absolutely nothing visible while his mind tore apart the fabric of reality.
Finn watched from the other bed, eating a pastry he'd bought from the bakery downstairs. Three days in the capital and he still wasn't used to the taste of real food. Butter. Sugar. Flakes that melted on his tongue. He ate slowly, savoring each bite, because old habits died hard and his stomach still expected the next meal to be the last.
"You've been sitting there for two hours," he said.
Lucian didn't open his eyes. "Time is relative."
"For who?"
"For me."
