There was something sitting cold in Phei's chest, and it had been sitting there long enough that he'd stopped being surprised by it and started being quietly, persistently annoyed.
Each time he turned his awareness toward it and he pressed his attention inward reaching to it the thought simply ceased:
His mind would then slide somewhere entirely else with no fade or warning, just Phei standing in one thought and then standing in another with no memory of the crossing.
He'd tried to describe this to Eira earlier, which had been its own particular exercise in futility, because Eira's response had been a silence so genuine and unsettled it confirmed the worst: whatever fog had been packed around that cold thing was dense enough to run even an ancient Elemental Fairy's awareness straight off its surface.
She'd started to explain the sensation back to him— it's like reaching for a specific star by looking directly at—
