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  He continued, “Can I tell you my theory? You don’t have to confirm anything. But feel free to look horrified when I get it right. Have you heard of The Balance of Nature? No? Well, it’s a theory that says that nature will correct an upset to a stable environment by producing an opposite force that will bring it back into balance. If we assume the demons are the upset, then you are the opposite force. Some sort of demon-fighting supernatural soldier. Funny, I thought you guys had wings.” Her mouth went slack. He nodded as if she had spoken to confirm his theory. “I thought so.”

  “If your theory is true, what is your part in this balance?” she said, trying to regain some semblance of control over this conversation.

  “I am an anomaly.” There was a clear note of sourness to his voice. “A mutation.”

  “You can see their demon faces? You shouldn’t be able to.”

  “You can see them, too.”

  “I’m supposed to see them. I was born to fight them, trained to kill them. You’re mortal. You shouldn’t be involved in this war.”

  “They involved me. I’m involved.”

  “You don’t have to be. You can just pretend you never saw them.”

  “You don’t understand. They involved me. They’ve been after me since they realized I can see them. I’ve run for so many years.” His lips pressed into a stubborn line. “I won’t run anymore.”

  “Then it’s only a matter of time before one of them kills you.”

  “I’m going to Hell anyway, I might as well take as many of them down with me as I can.”

  His facade slipped and Alyx saw his pain under his hardened shell. She knew the pain was there; she had felt it. But to see it so starkly made her want to hunt down the causes of it. His pain softened his features, making him look delicate and vulnerable. And beautiful. It was then that Alyx realized this mortal had seen less than a handful of winters more than she had.

  His eyes flared with a new light and his features hardened again. “You can teach me.”

  “What?”

  “You can teach me to kill them like you can.”

  “No!”

  “I’ll be a good student. I’ll do everything you tell me to.”

  A distant cry of an eagle pulled her attention away from him. It was Symon’s call but it sounded rushed, desperate. Reality broke back into her world. The lightwarriors sent out after her were coming. They would soon find her. They would find him. The call sounded again.

  A chill settled on Alyx’s spine. They could not find her with this strange mortal standing here near the body of the Darkened that she just killed in front of him. This mortal knew too much. And what about his gift to see the Darkened’s demon faces? He was a threat to their secrecy. They would have to take him in. What would the Elders do with him?

  Protect him, something unexplainable in her cried out. “You have to go,” Alyx said, the urgency rising in her voice.

  “Take me with you.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? You have to leave. Now. They can’t find you here.”

  “I can fight with you, alongside you.”

  “They won’t accept you. Mortals aren’t supposed to be involved in this war.”

  “Please, I need to see you again. I have so many questions.”

  “I can’t answer them. Go. Leave now. If you want to live.”

  “No. I’ve spent too long running from them without answers. Now that I’ve found you…” His lip curled in defiance. “I’m not leaving.”

  “They’ll punish me if they find you here,” Alyx cried in desperation.

  His face softened. “Okay, I’ll go. But only if you promise that you’ll meet me again.”

  She shouldn’t. “I…can’t.”

  “Then I’m staying. And we can both be damned.”

  Symon’s call was close now. Soon, she and this mortal would be seen from above and it would be too late. “Fine, I’ll meet you.”

  He nodded, his face showing relief. “Give me your blade.”

  “What?”

  “I need assurance that you’ll come back.”

  Symon’s call came again, sounding like he was almost above them. Alyx growled like a cornered tiger and thrust the handle of her blade at him. “You don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”

  “Where shall I meet you?” he said, taking the kris from her and tucking it into his belt.

  “Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Do you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow night. Midnight. Now go, damn you.”

  “Till tomorrow night then,” he said as he turned. Instead of going out the mouth of the alley, he ran down the other way towards the chain link fence, the dead end. His footsteps were surprisingly light for a mortal of his size. Alyx frowned. Where was he going? There was no way out from that end. To her shock the mortal leaped up on top of the lid of a large industrial bin, kicking off the chain-link fence towards the outside of a brick building. Instead of falling he clung to the wall. He was grasping at handholds so small that Alyx couldn’t see them from where she was standing. He started to crawl up the wall like a four-legged spider and disappeared into the dark second-story window of the building.

  Was he really mortal? Only then did Alyx realize she didn’t know his name.

  Alyx made an eagle call. Almost immediately, there was a return call from Symon. She moved to the Darkened corpse, avoiding the blood pooling around the body and trickling along the gravel like dark rivers. She scanned the ground for any signs that the mortal had been here; a bloody footprint, a torn piece of shirt...

  The swish of air behind her let her know the lightwarriors had started to arrive. A set of footsteps echoed on the ground as one of them approached her. A chill went through her when she saw who it was. “What are you doing here?”

  Yael ignored her and kicked the dead Darkened over with his boot.

  “Have some respect,” Alyx said. “She may have been Darkened but she was mortal once too.”

  Yael turned to Alyx, malice in his eyes. “You are not one to talk to me about respect. What were you thinking flying off like that, breaking protocol?”

  “Leave the lectures to me, Yael. You are not her keeper.” Symon stepped down to the gravel and strode towards them. Alyx was about to step to Symon’s side but the look in his eyes made her draw back.

  Yael growled at Symon and clenched his fists. “If you were able to keep her in line, I wouldn’t have reason to talk to her like that.”

  “Can we stop arguing and focus on the task at hand here?” Lutando said as he landed softly near them and stepped closer to the body. “Alyx, what happened?”

  “She was dead when I got here. I couldn’t see anyone else.”

  “She was killed here.” Lutando knelt down and touched a patch of blood with the edge of a finger. “There’s a lot of blood, still wet. She can’t have been dead for long. There’s her demonsword.”

  Symon knelt on the other side of the body. With the tips of his fingers he pinched the hem of her top. He peeled it back. No Adere. No message. He turned to Alyx. “Do you know if it is the same killer as your first vision?”

  “I’m not sure,” she lied. “It could be.” She could feel Symon staring at her.

  “Two killers?” said Lutando.

  “What I want to know is why you took so long to answer back your location,” said Yael.

  “What are you insinuating?”

  Yael stepped forward to close the distance between them. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  Alyx stood her ground. “I’m not hiding anything. You know just as much as I do.”

  “I have something,” a voice called from nearer the mouth of the alley.

  Yael glared at Alyx once more, then headed down the alley to where Do’hann was crouched.

  Alyx grabbed Symon before he, too, moved down the alleyway. “Why did you let Yael and Do’hann come?”

  Symon shrugged her hand off his arm. He stared at her, jaw twitching, before finally speaking,
“You flying off like that raised some questions. Varian convinced Michael that it would be prudent to send two of his flock members along with us as he suggested that I may lie to protect you.”

  Alyx felt her cheeks heating up. “I’m sorry, Symon, I didn’t think−”

  “That’s right, Alyx, you didn’t think.” Alyx toyed with a loose piece of gravel with her boot, feeling like she was eight winters again. He sighed, an exasperated sigh, and pushed back the hair from his forehead. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. Just be on your best behavior.”

  Symon strode off to join Yael and Do’hann. She followed.

  They were looking at something in Yael’s hand. Her heart dropped when she saw it. It was the mortal’s forgotten knife, an antique hunting knife.

  “...another demon maybe?” Lutando was saying. “The killer? But why would the Rogue have this old thing? And why would he leave it behind?”

  “Why indeed,” said Yael, sneering. “Explain this, Alyx.”

  Her mind froze. What could she say?

  “Yael, stop interrogating her,” said Symon. “She’s not the suspect here.”

  Yael turned to him. “Your affection blinds you. She knows something that she isn’t saying.”

  Symon rose up to full height. “Yael Oistin, you will remember your rank and who you’re speaking to.”

  “Yeah, well... I want to hear it from her.”

  “I don’t know any more than you do,” Alyx said. “I only arrived not minutes before you.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “I don’t care what you believe. You’ve had it in for me since I took your damn title off you. We won. You lost. Get over it. I’m going to keep looking around.” Alyx stalked off into the alley again. She could hear Lutando and Do’hann behind her, restraining Yael from coming after her. Her body shook from her outburst and she had to take several deep breaths to calm herself.

  Her gaze rolled across the dark buildings around her. She thought she saw a figure moving in one of the windows. She blinked but it was gone. It was the mortal. She could sense him. She could feel it in the way her heart beat faster in her chest.

  Symon grabbed her, startling her, and spun her to face him. “Report back to Michaelea, Alyx. You’re dismissed.”

  “What? But Yael was the one−”

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  “This isn’t fair. This is my−”

  “I’m doing this to help you. So they can’t claim you’ve further contaminated the scene.”

  “Further contaminated?”

  “Alyxandria, I’ve given you an order.”

  “Fine. I’ll go,” Alyx muttered under her breath. She watched Symon stride back to the others. They would finish looking over the scene without her. What else would they find to incriminate her?

  It wasn’t too late to tell them about the mortal. They could capture him tomorrow at Saint Paul’s Cathedral at midnight. She could wash her hands of this tainted responsibility, let the Elders deal with him.

  I can’t hand him over...

  But if she didn’t and was found out, the consequences...

  An image of the mortal’s face came into her mind, of those few seconds where his cool facade dropped and she saw him. Really saw him. He carried more pain with him than he should, more pain than she carried with her. He was alone with no one, as Alyx was before Symon took her in. He was alone and he asked for her help. Her chest bloomed with defiance. And…curiosity. Above everything she felt this desperation to see him again.

  Maybe he would have some answers for her, she told herself.

  Tomorrow. She would see him tomorrow; her heart seemed to skip at this thought. Until then she had to find out as much as she could. There was only one place to start, the center of all Seraphim knowledge – the Archives.

  Chapter 10

  Early the next morning, Alyx left her pod for the Archives. After she had reported back to Michaelea she went straight to her pod. Symon hadn’t come to her after he returned. She was glad; she wasn’t ready for the consequences of his wrath.

  The city was silent like the dead, everyone still recovering from last night’s Announcement celebrations, so she met no one on her way. The Archives was a separate dome within the cluster of scholar and lecture buildings, squat and low off the ground like a bloated mushroom, enclosed on all sides to prevent the damaging elements, especially sunlight, from tasting the rolls of Threads within.

  She floated through the entrance, the space dropping below her into a honeycomb labyrinth of horizontal and vertical shelves and stacks, endlessly filled with rolled-up Threads, their colored title-ends creeping over the edges of their wooden cradles. The dome, having no natural light, was lit from within by strands of halolights winding across the walls, ceilings, and along the Threadcases like a proliferate weed.

  She was the only one in here apart from Elder Cornelius, who was floating around with a trolley powered by Air magic, replacing Threads in their rightful places. Alyx went first to the section marked Mortals, hoping to glean some information on this mysterious man she was meeting again tonight. She pulled Thread after Thread off the shelves drawing their information into her, but there was nothing to indicate that there had been previous cases known to the Seraphim where a mortal could see the Darkened’s true faces. Nor could she find any suggestion of links between Seraphim or mortals like she had been experiencing.

  She then moved on to the section marked Seraphim Magic, seeking information on her strange vision and this Soulsight. She found information on Elder Raphael’s visions, but the information was sparse and it wasn’t anything she hadn’t already learned in lectures. Her visions, if that’s what they were, were different. She found no information on any type of magic that would explain what she was experiencing. She found nothing on her newly acquired Soulsight.

  Finally she sought out the section on Demons and the Darkened. The ceiling above her disappeared behind a canopy of shelves and Threads as she moved deeper into the Archives. The silence seemed to thicken as she moved through the belly of the Archives. After a few more hours of searching she ended up again with nothing.

  It was now late in the evening. Last Meal would be occurring. Her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten all day. But she didn’t want to go to the Heart. It wasn’t a coincidence that she had chosen to hide in the Archives all day. After her vision last night she wasn’t game enough to face the other Seraphim just yet.

  She decided she would sneak out of Michaelea now and move about Saint Joseph until it was time to meet the mortal, maybe sit in a dimly lit diner and eat reheated food paid for by the mortal money she had collected, listening to the mundane conversations around her and wondering what life would have been like if she had been born mortal. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had done it.

  She was about to fly up to the exit when she saw something shining like glass out of the corner of her eye. What was that? Curiosity overtaking hunger, Alyx moved around the Threadcases to get a better look. There was another section down here, a square space enclosed by magic shields, shimmering like an icy vault.

  “Elder Cornelius,” she called out as he floated nearby. “Can you tell me what’s in there?”

  Elder Cornelius was one of the bearded scholars that looked after the Archives. Alyx had Elder Cornelius as a lecturer on Seraphim history and she didn’t have the best memories of him. He sent a sour look down at her over his glasses, and for a second she thought he might drive her out of the Archives; then his face suddenly relaxed. “Oh, my dear, it’s you.”

  It’s me?

  “That is the restricted section,” Elder Cornelius continued, “only the most important records we hold in Michaelea. Some of those Threads are almost two thousand years old.”

  That is exactly what she needed. “How do I get access to it?”

  Elder Cornelius laughed. “Oh my dear, you don’t. The restricted section is only to be accessed by permission of Elder Michael himself. O
nly he has the keye.”

  “Oh.” Dammit.

  “Any other questions?”

  How do I convince Elder Michael to hand over his keye? “No. Thank you, Elder.”

  “Not a problem. And by the way…” He beamed at her. Before now Alyx wasn’t even aware that Elder Cornelius could beam. “My sincerest congratulations to you.”

  He must have meant her recently awarded DreamWeaver mark. “Oh, um, thank you.” Since when did Elders become interested in the awarding of Marks to warriors?

  “If you do think of anything else, don’t hesitate to find me,” Elder Cornelius said as he moved on.

  That was weird. Since when did Elders become so pleasant to mere warriors?

  Alyx waited until she couldn’t see Elder Cornelius before she pressed her hands and face against the semi-opaque walls of the restricted section. She could see the blurred shapes of Threads inside. The information she wanted was in there. How was she going to get it?

  Chapter 11

  Alyx dropped soundlessly to the ground in a dark corner of the gardens surrounding Saint Paul’s Cathedral in Saint Joseph. She could see the cathedral from here, an elaborate structure of spires and towers, overflowing with ornate spikes and intricate carvings of sitting dragons and praying angels. A relic from before the last Mortal War, the cathedral had taken substantial damage and had only been partially renovated to its former glory. The grand entrance was two giant doors of a gray metal, worked into the raised forms of opposing angels with outstretched wings and billowing robes.

  The city clock struck midnight in the distance. She spotted movement in a section of the gardens kept dark by the bowing branches of a tall willowy tree. It was him. She recognized his silhouette and the way he moved. She knew it was him by the way her heart sped up as it seemed to do when she saw him or thought of him. This must be an effect of their strange connection.

  Alyx began to creep towards him, low to the ground, along the row of bushes until she was close enough to reach out and touch him. “Hey,” she whispered. “It’s Alyx.”