Jake's return to consciousness was slow, creeping, and marked by a complete absence of the pain that had been his last living sensation. There was no noise, no crushing heat, no smell of spice or grit. There was only cool, dry air and a soft, rhythmic hiss that sounded faintly like ocean waves.
He blinked, his eyes sticky and reluctant to open. When they finally did, he saw a vaulted ceiling made of dark, polished cedar, intricately carved with geometric patterns that seemed to absorb all light and sound. He was lying on a low cot, covered by a sheet of smooth, heavy linen.
This place was the antithesis of Marrakesh—silent, cool, and utterly still.
He tried to shift his weight. The sharp agony in his side was gone, replaced by a dull, generalised ache, as if his muscles had been soaked in brine. He reached out and found his ribs wrapped tight in a complex, rigid binding that wasn't plaster or fabric, but something that felt warm and subtly electric.
"Do not move. The mend is still settling."
The voice was low, resonant, and spoken in a near-perfect, unaccented American English, yet possessed a soft, North African cadence.
Jake managed to turn his head. Standing beside his cot was a man who looked to be in his late fifties. He was dressed in simple, off-white cotton clothes that seemed to float around him. His skin was the colour of dark, aged bronze, and his eyes—deep-set and startlingly light brown—were focused entirely on a series of small, shimmering glass tubes set on a nearby stand.
"Who are you?" Jake croaked, his throat dry.
"I am the one who scraped you off the cobblestones and rearranged your anatomy," the man replied without looking up. He adjusted one of the glass tubes, which was faintly glowing with a warm, amber light. "You arrived with three broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, and an astonishing amount of kinetic bruising. I am Master Khalil. This is the Marrakesh Haven."
Jake relaxed slightly. An Arcana Haven. Liora hadn't been wrong. "Where is Liora?"
Khalil finally looked at him, his expression one of calm, professional assessment. "The girl is stabilised. She is closer to the true danger than you are, Mr Faust. Your injuries are of the flesh. Hers are of the spirit, compounded by the flesh."
He gestured to a separate corner of the room, cordoned off by a thick, dark curtain. The rhythmic hiss was louder there, and Jake could now hear a faint, complex humming sound beneath it.
"She used an immense amount of stored energy—a debt she hasn't paid. The escape spell demanded the rest. It left her system running on fumes, and the resulting backfire caused massive damage to her arm and her circulatory system," Khalil explained, his tone factual and devoid of emotion. "I am replenishing her mana reservoir via IV, a slow and dangerous process. She will not be conscious for at least another forty-eight hours."
Jake swallowed hard. "Will she be okay?"
"I have done all the initial work. You will both heal, because you are young and your bodies are powerful machines. But you both spent a currency you didn't have," Khalil said. He approached Jake's cot and pressed a cool, smooth stone against the electric binding on Jake's ribs. The stone flashed, and the rhythmic hiss intensified momentarily. "Your ribs are sealed with a simple Mend-Knot. It is Arcana, but nothing fancy. It will hold better than any cast, but you must still take care."
He sat down on a low stool beside the cot, his movement completely fluid and silent.
"Now," Khalil continued, folding his hands. "You did not come to the Marrakesh Haven for a vacation. This site is for emergencies only. My sensors indicate you were fleeing a high-grade Pursuit Sentinel, and the exit signature shows a chaotic, unmanaged jump from an extreme depth in the transit lines. This means you are rogues, or you are running from something larger than yourselves."
Jake didn't hesitate. The man was a healer, not an inquisitor, and they needed to establish credibility fast. "We were running from the Hidden Order. Liora is a student who defected, and I was... a loose end. They tried to execute us."
Khalil's eyes narrowed slightly, but his face remained impassive. "The Order is efficient. They do not send Sentinels for loose ends. They send them for threats. You and the girl you're going through a heavily guarded exclusion zone. You disrupted a major transit hub." He paused, studying Jake intently. "Tell me your name, and tell me precisely why the Hidden Order wants your silence so badly."
Jake opened his mouth—then stopped.
His heartbeat thudded once, hard enough to make him wince. The warmth blooming in his chest pulsed again, faint but persistent, like something remembering him in the dark.
Khalil noticed.
"Pain?" the healer asked.
"No," Jake lied. "Just nerves."
Khalil didn't press. He simply waited, spine straight, hands folded like a judge prepared to weigh every word.
Jake exhaled shakily.
"My name is Jake Faust," he said. "I'm not… anyone. Or I wasn't. I was just a student. I had a normal life. Then something happened. An accident."
Khalil's eyes sharpened. "Accident?"
Jake nodded. "I was in a car accident. An accident that alerted the order about me. Liora saved me. But I wasn't the same after."
"You awakened?"
Jake swallowed. "Yes. Suspensum."
Khalil's composure faltered—just for a second. It was enough.
"Suspensum." His voice was hushed now, the faintest breath of disbelief. "One of the volatile Arcana. No wonder the Order sent a Sentinel."
Jake curled his fingers into the sheets. "I didn't choose it."
"One never chooses," Khalil replied. "One endures."
Jake almost laughed at that. Almost.
Khalil leaned forward. "Continue."
Jake hesitated. He didn't want to say any of it out loud. Because saying it would make it real. The accident. The power. The way time bent without his permission. The way the Order looked at him was like a walking disaster.
But Khalil waited, and Jake sensed—even through the ache in his ribs—that this man wasn't the kind you lied to.
"They attacked us," Jake said. "In the tunnels. Liora tried to talk. They wouldn't listen. They wanted her dead. And they wanted me erased."
"Erased," Khalil repeated softly. "A strong word."
"It's the one they used."
Khalil's eyes chilled. "Then the Order believes you are a threat to their balance."
Jake huffed a weak laugh. "I don't even know how my power works."
"That," Khalil murmured, "is precisely why you are dangerous."
He rose from the stool and crossed to a lacquered cabinet built into the cedar wall. He withdrew a thin, rectangular slate carved with sigils that rippled faintly like ink on water.
"I must record your presence formally," he said, "but not in the Order's network. You fell through too many cracks. The Marrakesh Haven is not under their authority."
Jake's stomach twisted. "So we're safe?"
Khalil turned back to him. The look in his eyes was not reassuring.
"Yes," he said. "But safety and obscurity are not the same. And you are only one of those."
Jake stared. "What does that mean?"
Khalil knelt beside him again, lowering his voice.
"It means, Mr Faust, that Suspensum awakenings are almost always accompanied by external resonance—echoes of other Arcana awakening in proximity. A chain reaction. And chain reactions attract attention."
Jake's breath caught.
"What kind of attention?"
"Yours," Khalil said, "and others'. Too many threads pull at you. And the Order does not like knots it did not tie."
Jake's pulse picked up. "What do we do?"
Khalil stood. "You rest. And when the girl wakes, I will speak to you both. Then we decide if you flee… or if you vanish."
Jake frowned. "Vanish?"
Khalil offered a thin, enigmatic smile.
"The Limbus Arcanae is not the only thing that tears."
The rhythmic hiss from Liora's corner deepened, as if echoing the warning.
Jake looked toward her shadow behind the curtain.
"Can I see her?"
Khalil shook his head. "Not yet. Her spirit is adrift, and your presence may disturb her tether. But—"
He paused, studying Jake with a strange, almost reluctant admiration.
"She is alive because of you. Suspensum answered her gamble. Even unconscious, she clung to your signature like a lifeline."
Jake froze, throat tightening.He didn't understand why hearing that hurt.
Or why the warmth in his chest pulsed again, gentle… almost mournful.
Khalil returned to his instruments, adjusting the amber tubes.
"Rest now," he said. "When you wake, the world may be different."
Jake lay back slowly, exhaustion dragging at him.
He closed his eyes.
But the warmth in his chest didn't fade.
If anything…It hummed.
As if someone, somewhere, was reaching back.