Chapter 14: THALASSIA

Only after the connection ended did Sio realize how strongly part of him wanted Arch to reopen the kitchen door and let him step back into the familiar mess of home. Arch was already choosing somewhere else, though, so Sio pushed the thought aside and joined him beside the maps.

Earlier that morning, the wall had represented every place he wanted to see. The old routes had been stories. The coastal lines of Thalassia, the mountain crossings through Zephyrus and the vast stretches of Viridia had all belonged to some future version of Sio who had enough money, enough time and fewer reasons to worry his mother.

Now Arch studied those same routes as exits.

Sio’s attention eventually settled on Thalassia. He had spent years reading about the Pelagic Rings and calculating how long he would need to save before seeing them himself. Even with Central Nexus already moving toward the house, the old excitement had not disappeared completely.

Arch noticed where his eyes kept returning. "I can practically hear you planning tourism."

Sio shifted the bag higher on his shoulder, making no effort to pretend otherwise. "I’m aware this is an escape. I’m also aware that if you open a door and there’s an ocean on the other side, part of me is going to be impressed before the responsible part catches up. Those two parts have never respected each other’s schedules."

"Your mother has probably spent nineteen years discovering that."

"She remains strangely committed to me anyway."

The floor trembled beneath them, and neither needed to speak for the mood to change. Something farther inside the house rattled against a shelf. A second impact followed strongly enough to knock glassware together inside the cabinet and shift one of the framed maps crooked on the wall.

Yesterday returned through Sio’s body faster than his thoughts could stop it. His shoulder tightened around fading pain, and for a moment the room around him lost ground to the memory of stone breaking beneath his back and a Vessel’s hand closing around his throat.

Arch saw the reaction and moved immediately.

He pulled the Thalassian map from the wall and shoved it into the travel case before heading toward a narrow door half-hidden behind two stacks of books. His voice had lost every trace of the irritated examiner from earlier. "They’re already close enough that I don’t want you experimenting with Claim I. Stay beside me and let me handle the crossing. Once we’re through, you can go back to interrogating the geography."

The last part was probably meant to keep Sio moving rather than comfort him, but it worked anyway.

Sio followed while tightening both hands around the straps of his bag. "I know we’re short on time, but I’d still appreciate knowing whether you actually have a destination before that door opens."

Arch swept the books away from the frame with his foot and wrapped one hand around the handle. Another impact travelled through the house, this one accompanied by the sound of wood splitting somewhere beyond the study.

"I know where I intend to arrive. At the moment, that’s the answer that matters."

Sio would normally have demanded something more useful. The crack spreading across the nearest window persuaded him to accept the one available.

Arch opened the door, and warm coastal air rushed through the study before Sio had time to prepare for what waited beyond.

Pale sand descended from the threshold toward an ocean wide enough to consume the horizon. Water moved through layers of blue and green before breaking against dark stone farther along the coast. Buildings curved across the shallows on elevated foundations and natural outcrops, connected by narrow bridges and terraces thick with vegetation. Some rested close to shore while others continued outward with the coastline, their pale walls broken by gardens, shaded walkways and broad openings facing the sea.

For several seconds, Sio forgot the house behind him.

He had seen photographs of Thalassia. They had done a terrible job.

Arch caught the back of his jacket and pulled him toward the opening. "You can fall in love with the coastline after we stop standing in the doorway."

Sio stepped through before he needed to be dragged.

Sand shifted beneath his boots while the air changed around him all at once. Salt, damp stone, warm vegetation and something sweet flowering farther inland replaced the dry smell of books and polished wood. Wind pushed through his hair, carrying the sound of waves close enough that he could hear pebbles being pulled back beneath the water.

He turned as Arch crossed behind him.

The doorway still showed the study for one final moment. Another impact tore through the house, sending one of the tall shelves over beneath a shower of books and plaster. The place where Sio had been sitting not long before disappeared under falling debris while dust rolled through the room and something heavier collapsed beyond it.

Arch pulled the door closed before anything else could reach them. The frame disappeared with the study, leaving uninterrupted sand where Luminara had existed moments earlier.

Sio remained there long enough for his breathing to settle, but the ocean betrayed every attempt at responsible priorities soon afterward. His attention moved back toward the distant structures and open water even while he understood everything that had followed them here in less visible ways. Central Nexus wanted him under anomaly jurisdiction. Somebody had bypassed Fern and Caspian to send the file. Arch had found something inside him that seemed connected to Silas and refused to name it yet. Mira was waiting for confirmation that they had survived the crossing. None of those things stopped this from being Sio’s first time in Thalassia, and the happiness beneath the fear felt badly timed but undeniably real.

He caught up beside Arch while still looking toward the sea. "Please tell me this is actually Thalassia. If you’ve brought me somewhere that merely resembles it, I’d prefer to be disappointed after I’ve had time to admire it properly."

Arch followed his attention toward the buildings rising beyond the shallows. By now he seemed to understand that Sio’s interest in where they had landed was not going to disappear simply because the circumstances were terrible. "Southern Thalassia. Far enough from Luminara that Central Nexus should need time to reach us through ordinary channels."

Sio absorbed that while the coastline continued opening ahead of them. "My first trip here was supposed to involve saved money, the cheapest room I could find and several days spent getting lost on purpose. I also planned to spend at least a week convincing Mum that travelling alone wasn’t an elaborate way to die somewhere beautiful. None of the versions involved being transferred across an ocean because Central Nexus suddenly decided I’m research."

Arch started them along the firmer sand near the waterline, keeping the open beach behind them in view. "You sound disappointed in the itinerary."

"I’m frightened by the reason we’re here. I’m still in Thalassia. Both things can be true without one cancelling the other."

Arch looked at him for a moment, and the tension in his face softened around something more familiar.

"You are very much Silas’s son."

That reached Sio somewhere the earlier stories had not. He had spent the morning laughing about his father’s lies and terrible judgment in Zephyrus, but hearing Arch compare the two of them directly made Silas feel closer in a different way.

Sio hurried a few steps to remain beside him, resisting the immediate urge to turn the comment into another interrogation. "You’re making it significantly harder to respect your decision not to explain what happened with Dad’s case."

Arch adjusted the travel case against his side. The faint amusement remained, though too much emotion lived underneath it for Sio to mistake the silence for teasing.

Sio let him keep the answer for now. Mira had waited long enough.

He pulled out his communicator and began calling her as they moved farther along the shore, turning his head toward the ocean often enough that Arch noticed but, for once, chose not to comment.

Back in Aurelia, very little of Arch’s house remained intact by the time the dust settled.

The front section had collapsed inward. Another strike tore through one of the reinforced walls and split part of the foundation beneath it. The study survived longer than the rooms around it, though shelves that had travelled with Arch across countries eventually disappeared beneath timber and stone, old instruments were crushed inside broken cabinets, and fragments of maps burned where part of the ceiling fell across the table.

A figure entered through the ruined outer wall after the movement stopped.

They showed no interest in searching the wreckage for Arch or Sio. Their path carried them directly toward what remained of the narrow doorway used during the escape, where the frame had shattered into splintered wood and broken flooring.

The figure crouched and placed one hand against the debris. The Scar hidden beneath their clothing responded as their palm settled against the ruined boards. Whatever ability came through it left no visible mark, but they had clearly found something in the remains of Arch’s passage that ordinary senses could not have detected.

Their fingers moved slowly over the damaged floor before stopping near the place where the door had opened. The trace continued beyond the wreckage and far past Luminara, thin enough that following it required several seconds of absolute concentration.

A voice reached them through the communicator beneath their coat. "The retrieval team found nobody. Did Arch get the boy out?"

"He moved Sio before the breach reached the study." The figure kept their hand against the floor while fire spread through loose pages nearby. "He used one of his doors. Don’t waste time on roads, stations or local transit."

The person on the other end asked whether the passage could still be followed.

The figure concentrated again. The trace weakened across the distance without disappearing completely. They followed what remained beyond Luminara, across the ocean and toward a stretch of coastline precise enough to act on.

"Southern Thalassia. I can’t give you the exact point yet, but the trail is holding. Give me time and I’ll narrow it."

The reply was brief, and the figure rose from the ruined doorway before making their way back through the collapsed house while Arch’s study continued burning behind them.

Whatever distance Arch had placed between Sio and Luminara, somebody already knew where to search.