Captain Borin's office was the heart of the Gearhouse, a place of stark, functional order. One wall was covered in detailed schematics of the city's underworks. Another held display cases of deactivated and dangerous supernatural artifacts, each one a trophy from a past contract. The air smelled of old paper, metal, and discipline. Borin sat behind a massive desk made from the salvaged hull of an ironclad ship, his large, scarred hands resting flat on the surface. He did not invite them to sit.
For a full minute, he said nothing, his gaze moving from Ronan to Liam and back again, his eyes as cold and gray as a winter sea. He was not just looking at them; he was assessing them, weighing them, and finding them wanting.
When he finally spoke, his voice was a low, dangerous rumble, like the grinding of immense gears. "I have reviewed your reports. I have listened to Cain's tactical analysis. And I have spent the last thirty-six hours holding the soul of one of my people in my hands because of your failures."
He fixed his gaze on Ronan. "You. They call you the Weaver. A grand title. But a weaver understands the threads. He respects them. You act like a common gambler, throwing dice in the dark and hoping for a winning roll. You don't guide fate; you try to bully it. You saw a high-probability path to the evidence and willfully ignored the low-probability, high-risk threads of a deliberate, coordinated ambush. Your desire for a quick, clever victory blinded you to the fact that the game was rigged from the start."
Borin leaned forward, his presence filling the room. "Your power is to be a compass, to show the safest path through the storm. But you used it like a treasure map, leading your team directly to the spot marked 'X' without considering that such treasures are always guarded by dragons. Your Ahenk Law demands you help others reach their potential, but your arrogance nearly led them to their graves. You want to be a master of fate, Ronan Sullivan, but you are not yet a worthy student. Your connection to your Seal is unstable because your pride is a constant, deafening noise."
Before Ronan could even process the brutal accuracy of the assessment, Borin's gaze shifted to Liam.
"And you," the Captain rumbled, his voice somehow even colder. "Mühür: Anın Gözcüsü. The Watcher of the Moment. A noble concept. A duty to observe, to understand, to protect the natural flow of time." He paused, letting the words hang in the air. "Yet you spend every waking second of your existence wishing you could shatter the past and remake it to your liking. Your entire being is a dam fighting against the river you swore to watch over. Your Ahenk Law demands patience, but you are consumed by an impatient grief."
Liam flinched as if struck.
"In Sub-station 7," Borin continued, his voice relentless, "you were not a Sealbearer. You were a passenger, carried along by the actions of others. Cain reported that you froze when the fighting began. You told me you were overwhelmed by the temporal echoes. That is a lie you tell yourself. The truth is, you were drowning in the echo of your own failure. You were so lost in the ghost of your sister's tragedy that you were a liability to the living people fighting beside you. You want to save her, so you sacrifice the present for the past, again and again."
He stood up, his large frame blocking the light from the window. "Your power is weak, Liam Corbin, because your will is at war with your own concept. Your grief is not a motivation; it has become a poison, and it is corrupting your Seal from the inside out."
The silence that followed was absolute. Borin's words were not just accusations; they were truths that both men had been desperately trying to avoid. He had taken their deepest insecurities and laid them bare on the iron desk between them.
"Your personal investigation into the Blank Page Legion is suspended. Indefinitely," Borin stated. "The Iron Compact carries no dead weight. You are liabilities. To me, to the team, and most of all, to yourselves."
He walked to the door and opened it. "You have two choices. One: You leave the Gearhouse within the hour. You take your chances with the Legion alone. Perhaps you will learn. More likely, you will die. Two: You stay. You forget you are investigators. You forget you are anything but flawed, broken recruits. You strip away everything you think you know about your powers, and you allow me to train you from the very beginning. You will not learn to fight. You will learn to be in harmony with the truths you claim to represent. You will confront the flaws in your own souls, or you will be consumed by them."
He looked at their shattered expressions. "Decide," he commanded, his voice leaving no doubt that this was the most important choice of their lives.