The future was blank. Laying on the couch, Thomas tried work out a solution. As best as he could determine, this was Jason’s fault. When he first began noticing glitches, he realized he could not longer find Julia in the future. Backtracking, he found the moment when Julia discovered Jason’s blue crystal. From that time forward, the future became harder and harder to explore.

With Julia out of the future, and Bailey following a little after that, any of his observations became increasingly unreliable. He had a sense of what the house would look like without them, but unless they actually left, that future would not come to pass. 

Discovering the existence of the crystals had explained some mysteries involving Jason. Thomas had longed believed it was Jason’s chaotic nature that made his presence elusive when scrying. The crystals provided a much more straightforward explanation. Now that they were held by others, though, it upended everything.

For the first time in decades, Thomas didn’t know what was in front of him. He had no inkling about potential threats. No clues as to how to prepare. The very idea was terrifying. The future once more was an unknown, filled with hidden terrors. 

The only solution he came to was removing the blue crystals from circulation, but doing that would not be easy. He couldn’t find them scrying, and he had no idea how to counter their effects. Asking Julia was obviously out of the question. Still, something had to be done, even if it meant that Julia would hate him more.