They froze and went pale all at once. Celestina let out a trembling breath, her grip loosening by a fraction.
"You... can you... sense that?" she asked tentatively.
"Sense? No... I cannot... I simply thought it was... obvious, though..." Azriel's tempo of speech had grown slower with each word, as though drawn from somewhere very nearly depleted.
"Obvious?"
He had deduced it. Just like that. Was it truly that obvious? Celestina could feel that time was being tampered with, sense it on some instinctive level she could not fully articulate even to herself, and yet Azriel had simply reasoned his way to the same conclusion while standing at the very edge of death.
"It really is not... so far-fetched... with everything I have... been dealing with... so far."
A breath left Lioren audibly.
"Thirty seconds remaining, and somehow we have arrived at the subject of time travel."
"Your reaction... and the others not denying it... tells me I am right."
