Chapter 132

SERAPHINA The recovery area was designed to appear welcoming—soft lighting, comfortable chairs, and refreshment stations that suggested concern for Guardian wellbeing rather than clinical observation. But I could feel the monitoring systems woven into every surface, recording everything from our vital signs to the ambient magical energy we radiated. Ruvan arrived first, his lunar-pale complexion even more drawn than usual. To any observer, he appeared exhausted by his testing session. Through our hidden bond, however, I felt his sharp satisfaction at having successfully fed false data to their instruments while gathering intelligence about their capabilities. "How did it go?" I asked aloud, maintaining our performance of concerned partners reuniting after forced separation. "Difficult," he replied, settling into the chair beside me with a weariness that wasn't entirely feigned. "The isolation made precision work nearly impossible. I could barely maintain basic lunar resonance without t