“Nothing?” she asked.
“I’m not a doctor,” he said quickly, “but, no. I mean, I don’t even know where to begin with a cure for something like that. It’s like asking for a recipe for immortality.”
“Would it stop if he joined back up with the Divide?” she asked.
“Stop? No,” he began, mind racing as he tried to process her train of thought. “I mean, yes, the balance might be restored, but I don’t think it’d resolve itself once you left the Divide, even if he slowed down properly the next time. He’d have to ride it forever. And all that’d be doing is changing the perception of his life span.”
“So, it’s permanent?” she asked, eyes glistening.
Then he felt it, that sensation he’d been hovering on the edge of: failing her. Disappointing her. Like he’d been gutted with a white-hot iron rod.
“We can’t stop or reverse the aging process,” he said quietly. “It’s just not possible. Just like time. Forward, never backward.”
Her eyes flickered with recognition, then her tone became fervent. “Then how do you explain what we saw on the Tempus?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “What’d you see on the Tempus?”
“The past. A time ripple. I saw me and Griff—doing the exact same thing we’d just done moments before.”
Cavalon looked to Jackin with wide eyes. Instead of the look of shock he expected, Jackin nodded.
“I saw it too,” Jackin agreed.
Cavalon shook his head. “That’s not … possible…” He scratched his lengthening stubble with both hands. “Not possible,” he repeated firmly. “Maybe a quirk, because of how they pulled away from it? A reflection? Maybe.” He filtered through his memories, all his studies, everything he thought he knew about anything. He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, I just, I don’t know how that happened. Either way, I don’t think that changes anything for Griffith.”
The vestige of hope that’d briefly glimmered across her eyes faded away, and that iron rod buried in Cavalon’s gut wrenched and took an even deeper plunge.
“Right,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry…” he began, but she’d already disappeared into the hallway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Adequin shut out everything else and headed straight for Mesa. The Savant had been poring over the pyramid’s screens for hours, and by now she must have had at least some idea of what information the device contained.
Mesa and Emery were alone in a small common room down the hall from the medbay. Emery paced by the door, balancing a bottle of water on the back of her hand as she marched back and forth. When Adequin approached, Emery snapped to attention, saluting to her chest with the sloshing bottle.
Mesa stood in the center of the room, shrouded in crisp, white holographic screens, which projected from the top of the burnished gold pyramid sitting on the floor at her feet. The display stretched two meters wide and just as tall, in a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle around her.
Adequin stepped in front of Mesa. The flood of light washed the Savant’s warm skin in an ethereal glow. She stared up at the highest parts of the screen, then drew her gaze down to meet Adequin’s.
“Excubitor,” Mesa said, eyebrows high and expectant. Then all at once, her features softened and she frowned. “How is the centurion?”
Adequin cleared her throat. “Still unconscious.”
“I am sorry.”
“Thanks.”
With a shuffle of feet and the sloshing of Emery’s water bottle, Adequin turned around. Jackin stood in the doorway with Emery at attention. He gave a quick wave to put the oculus at ease, passing by to head toward Adequin.