WAYFARER: CLAIM THE UNCLAIMABLE

The change wasn’t large. He simply stopped treating Sio’s face as the face of someone he was examining. His eyes moved over Sio more slowly, lingering around his hair and the shape of his eyes with the strange focus of someone comparing the person in front of him to a much older memory.

Sio allowed the inspection for several seconds before curiosity won. ”That name means something to you.”

Arch closed the notebook and rested one hand over its cover. ”I knew Silas.”

There was enough weight behind the sentence that Sio leaned forward despite his sore chest. ”Knew him how?”

Arch didn’t answer immediately. His attention had already shifted somewhere past Sio, occupied with thoughts that appeared to have nothing to do with the Scar.

”Your mother is Mira, isn’t she? Mira Eloran.”

Sio’s interest sharpened instantly. ”You know Mum too?”

”I did. A long time ago.” Arch rose and began returning the remaining equipment to the case, but the deliberate pace of the examination was gone. ”I didn’t know who you were when Caspian called me. I thought I was coming to look at an unusual Wayfarer case.”

”And hearing Dad’s name changed that.”

Arch fastened the case and finally looked at him. ”Quite a bit. Your mother should hear what I have to say before I continue examining you.”

Sio watched him cross toward an ordinary interior door set between two shelves. ”You’re doing that thing again where you answer enough to make the next question worse.”

”You’ll survive it for another minute.”

”You’ve known me for less than an hour and you’re already very confident about my patience.”

”I’ve met your father.”

That shut Sio up more effectively than Arch probably intended.

Arch wrapped one hand around the knob and opened the door.

Sio’s kitchen waited on the other side.

The crooked cabinet beside the window appeared first, followed by the plants his mother kept along the sill and the cloth hanging from the oven handle. Everything inside the kitchen looked exactly as it had when he’d run out that morning.

Sio stared through the frame before turning toward Arch. ”You realize I spent years saving money to travel while you people have been taking shortcuts through doors.”

Arch stepped into the kitchen. ”You weren’t invited.”

Sio followed him, deciding that answer deserved resentment later.

Mira stood near the table sorting vegetables from a cloth bag. She heard movement behind her but kept working, apparently assuming her son had finally returned from the errand she’d sent him on.

”You took long enough. I was starting to wonder whether that package had developed opinions about coming home.”

Sio glanced at his empty hands.

Technically, the package had survived the collection part of the journey. The Vessel had handled the rest.

”Mum.”

Something in his voice made her turn.

Her eyes found him first. The complaint she had been preparing vanished as she took in the dried blood, his guarded posture and the bruising spreading across his chest. She crossed the kitchen quickly and reached him before Sio had settled on a version of the morning that wouldn’t immediately make things worse.

”Forget the package. What happened to you?”

Sio allowed her to inspect his shoulder. During the Nexus examination he’d spent plenty of time deciding what he could safely tell her about the attack, but every version had assumed he’d be standing here alone. Arch waiting several steps behind him made the rehearsed explanations feel useless.

”I did collect it,” Sio said. ”So technically the errand wasn’t a complete failure. The return trip became a problem.”

Her fingers slowed against his shoulder. ”Don’t make me drag the important part out of you.”

The fear beneath her voice removed his temptation to soften it further.

”A Vessel found me on the way home.” He covered one of her wrists with his hand when her grip tightened. ”Fern and Caspian intervened. They took me to the Nexus afterward, and they’ve already checked all of this. I’m bruised, my chest hurts, and I’ve had enough examinations for several lifetimes, but I’m here.”

Mira studied his face with the focus she used whenever she suspected he was minimizing something. ”I sent you out for one package this morning. Somehow you’ve returned hours later after being attacked by a Vessel.”

Sio gave her hand a small squeeze. ”When you arrange it chronologically, it does sound worse.”

”This isn’t the moment to be helpful.”

”I know.”

Her attention finally moved beyond him.

Arch had remained near the doorway, giving them what little privacy the kitchen allowed. Mira looked at him once and seemed to forget the rest of the room for a moment.

”Arch?”

The name carried recognition Sio hadn’t expected.

Arch’s usual impatience disappeared with it. ”Hello, Mira.”

Years seemed to sit between those two words. Mira’s hand remained around Sio’s arm, but her expression had shifted into something older and more complicated than surprise.

She recovered first, mostly because concern for Sio refused to wait for history. ”You went to the Nexus after the attack, and somehow Arch came home with you. I’m assuming those two things are connected.”

”Very.”

”That was not an invitation to be vague.”

Arch spared Sio from attempting another explanation. ”His injuries are manageable. Something else came up during the examination, and I wanted to speak with you before I continued.”

Mira’s attention sharpened immediately. She knew Arch well enough that his return after nineteen years already meant something. ”All right. Tell me what brought you back into my kitchen.”

Arch looked toward Sio.

Sio inhaled slowly. There was no elegant way to deliver this part. ”I made my first Claim yesterday.”

Mira stared at him.

The fear from the attack remained, but joy reached through it slowly as the meaning settled. Her expression softened in a way Sio hadn’t seen since the conversation began.

”You finally Claimed something?”

Sio smiled despite himself. ”Apparently nineteen years of being rejected by random objects eventually wore reality down.”

Mira laughed, though emotion caught beneath the sound. She took his hands simply because she wanted to hold them, her thumbs moving over his knuckles while she looked at him.

”Nineteen years, Sio. I watched you try to Claim practically everything you could get your hands on.”

”I’ve worked hard to erase some of that history.”

”The bicycle isn’t going anywhere.”

Sio groaned. ”I was six.”

”You spent weeks talking to it like negotiation would help.”

”I had very limited experience with rejection.”

”You kicked the wheel when it failed.”

”That was an emotional moment.”

Mira’s laugh came more easily now. ”You came inside covered in dirt and told me the bicycle had betrayed you personally.”

Sio looked toward Arch, who appeared far too interested. ”This is exactly why family stories should require consent.”

”I disagree,” Arch said. ”This one is medically valuable.”

”You’re becoming less trustworthy by the minute.”

The warmth faded when Mira realized neither of them was treating the Claim itself as uncomplicated good news.

Her fingers remained around Sio’s hands. ”What did you Claim?”

Sio’s smile weakened. ”That’s where things become difficult. We don’t know what it is yet.”

Arch explained the rest before Mira had to question Sio piece by piece. The Claim’s Identity and Nature remained unresolved. Sio’s System had reported incomplete Integration and insufficient Host Capacity. Then the Nexus examination had discovered a Scar signature despite both earlier examinations confirming that no Scar existed.

Mira interrupted when Arch reached that part. ”They found one now? After his birth examination and the one at six both showed nothing?”

”A signature,” Arch clarified. ”The wound itself won’t resolve. The Nexus can locate where the interference is happening and read everything around it. The Scar remains obscured.”

Her attention moved to Sio. ”And you’re still classified Veyr.”

”Every reading says so.”

Mira looked back toward Arch. The frustration in her expression came from understanding enough about Wayfarers to know precisely why the result made no sense. ”Those classifications aren’t supposed to exist together.”

”Correct.”

Sio watched the conversation with growing awareness that his mother wasn’t treating Arch like some specialist she’d met years ago. She challenged him comfortably, expected direct answers from him and seemed familiar with the way he chose his words.

He finally interrupted. ”You knew Dad. You know Mum. Mum knows exactly how annoyed she’s allowed to sound at you. I’m starting to feel like I’m the only person missing an entire section of family history.”

Mira looked at Arch.

Arch rested one hand against the back of a chair. Discussing an invisible Scar had seemed easier for him than answering this.

”Silas and I were best friends.”

The words settled slowly.

Sio had known his father through Mira’s memories, old belongings and stories collected over years of asking questions. Arch’s answer opened another version of Silas that had existed far beyond their house, one belonging to journeys, friendships and a life Sio had never been able to witness.

His thoughts went immediately to the routes covering Arch’s wall. ”Those maps at your place... did Dad travel with you?”

Arch’s expression softened. ”Frequently. More frequently than either of us could properly afford.”

Mira leaned against the table, and a smile found her despite everything else happening. ”Silas believed planning too much ruined the point of travelling. He’d leave with enough money to reach somewhere and assume the rest would somehow solve itself.”

”He once dragged us three days into Zephyrus before admitting he had no idea where we were sleeping,” Arch said. The irritation in his voice was old enough to have become affection. ”We spent half the trip back listening to him explain why getting lost had apparently improved the journey.”

Sio could picture the argument far too easily. ”So that’s why Mum looks like she’s preparing for a funeral whenever I mention travelling alone.”

Mira’s eyes narrowed at him. ”I raised you while knowing exactly which man’s habits you inherited. Of course I worry.”

”I thought it was general maternal pessimism.”

”It became very specific after you learned to read maps.”

Arch looked between them, and something quiet passed across his face. The resemblance he had been searching for earlier no longer seemed limited to Sio’s appearance.