The three time-sensitive tablets changed things.

Not immediately. Not in the specific dramatic way that the Crimson Pact ritual had changed things, the white light and the shadow beasts falling and the binding completing in a single comprehensible moment. The tablets changed things the way depth charges changed water, the effect traveling through layers before it surfaced.

Marina had pressed her palms to all three in a single session the morning after the conversation with Silvain. Luna had been present. Vael had been present. Silvain had stood at the archive room door with Sera beside him, Sera having negotiated her way from observer at the entrance to observer at the...