Three days after that hilltop audience, the promised passage arrived in a form none of us had fully anticipated — not a summons directed at me alone, but a formal, physical envoy descending into Valoria's central square in broad daylight, drawing the entire village's stunned attention.
The envoy took the form of a tall, androgynous figure wrapped in robes of shifting, liquid light, features deliberately indistinct in a way that made looking directly at them for too long faintly disorienting. It carried itself with the particular, weighty formality of someone accustomed to strict protocol, and its first words, once the initial shock of its arrival had settled, carried exactly that same careful, bureaucratic precision.
"Lukas Gigonos," it said, voice resonating with the same quality I'd heard from that hilltop point of light three nights earlier. "I am Vethrion, appointed liaison for this matter by the Court of Heaven's Third Circle of Historical Review. I have been dispatched to escort you to formal audience, and to conduct preliminary assessment of the additional matter you referenced — the incomplete transfer case."
Eldrin, Aria, and several visibly nervous villagers had gathered at a respectful distance, and I noted, with some relief, that Vethrion's attention toward the assembled mortals carried nothing more threatening than polite, distant curiosity.
"This is Ivy," I said, gesturing to where she stood beside Kai, her own nervousness palpable but her composure, considering everything she'd already endured, genuinely admirable. "The incomplete transfer I mentioned."
Vethrion's attention shifted to her, and something in its otherwise carefully neutral demeanor sharpened with what might have been genuine professional concern. "This is... considerably more irregular than your petition suggested," it said, studying Ivy with an intensity that made her visibly uncomfortable. "An incomplete transfer of this nature should not be possible under standard Architect protocol. Either something has gone significantly wrong with the underlying process, or—" it paused, something almost like unease coloring its careful tone, "—or this was never intended to follow standard protocol in the first place."
"What does that mean?" Ivy asked, fear evident beneath her attempt at steady composure.
"It means," Vethrion said carefully, "that your case may require considerably more urgent attention than a simple preliminary audience can provide. I will need to escort you to the Court alongside Master Gigonos, assuming you consent to such passage."
Ivy looked to me, clearly seeking some guidance amid a situation that had rapidly outpaced anything her six months of coma-adjacent confusion could have prepared her for. "Is it safe?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know for certain," I said honestly, unwilling to offer false reassurance about a realm none of us had ever actually visited. "But I trust that whatever's happening to you needs answers only the Court can provide, and I'll be right there with you the entire time."
Ivy took a steadying breath, and nodded. "Then I'll go."
Kai stepped forward as well. "I'm coming too," he said, in a tone that made clear the statement wasn't a request. "If this Court has answers about the Architect, I've spent two years searching for exactly this kind of information. I'm not staying behind now that it's finally within reach."
Vethrion considered this for a moment before offering a small, formal nod. "The Court's audience protocol permits limited accompaniment for petitioners of sufficient standing. Master Gigonos's own completed trial grants him that standing. I will extend the same courtesy to his companions, given the circumstances' clear urgency."
Aria, who had remained quiet through most of the exchange, finally stepped forward and took my hand, her grip firm and certain despite the visible tension in her expression. "I'm not staying behind either," she said. "Not for something this significant."
Vethrion's attention shifted to her, something almost like curiosity flickering across its otherwise unreadable features. "You are not, yourself, a completed trainee," it observed. "Nor a native soul of the originating realm in question. Your presence at Court audience would be... unusual."
"I've stood beside Lukas through everything else this past year," Aria said, her voice carrying the same quiet, unshakeable resolve I'd come to rely on since the very beginning of our journey together. "I don't intend to stop now, unusual or not."
Vethrion studied her for a long, careful moment, then inclined its head slightly. "Very well. The Court values genuine loyalty highly, whatever its origin. Come. The passage awaits, and I suspect, given what your petition has already revealed, that the Court's Historical Review Circle will find this audience considerably more significant than their initial assessment anticipated."