They did not delay.
Before leaving, Lucien placed a Split Body with Dawnbinder.
If anything changed in Dawnbinder's city, Lucien would know at once.
Only after that did the operation begin.
Everyone moved onto their assigned routes.
Each carried one of Dawnbinder's crystal droplets.
The moment Lucien's group crossed into the first hidden line and allowed the droplet to respond, the world changed around them.
The Luminarch paths did not open like doors.
They adjusted perception.
The terrain itself remained present, but it no longer felt arranged in normal distance. A hill that should have taken ten minutes to cross became something they passed in moments. A winding ravine ceased to feel winding at all.
The path did not transport them.
It redefined what counted as "between."
That was the genius of Luminarch work.
They did not merely hide roads. They made roads that the world itself failed to prioritize.
