The moment Leonard stepped into the tavern, his eyes swept quickly across the room.
The reason he'd been crawling through every bar and tavern in the city these past two days had nothing to do with looking for a good time. He was looking for the Sanguine.
The existence of the Sanguine wasn't a secret to the Church or the official Beyonder community — but finding one when you actually needed one was a different matter. Leonard knew that Miss Daly would eventually make contact with the Sanguine through her position in the Church of the Evernight Goddess, working toward a way to treat the Captain. But he couldn't do that. All he could do was wait.
And waiting, as he'd discovered, was something he was terrible at.
He desperately wanted to find the Sanguine himself — get some concrete lead on whether there was a way to heal Dunn Smith. Based on the information he'd gathered, quite a few Sanguine had a habit of frequenting bars and taverns in their downtime.
Pity that several days of searching had turned up nothing.
"Kid, what you're doing right now is a classic case of pointless 'fake effort.'" Pallez's voice drifted up from inside him. "Say you did find a Sanguine — then what? This isn't your problem to solve. The Church of the Evernight Goddess will handle it."
Leonard didn't argue. Because the old man was right.
"Nothing here either."
He did one sweep of the room, let his head drop, and turned to leave — when a waitress walked over with a pleasant smile. "Sir, now that you're here, why not sit a while before you go?"
Leonard shook his head politely. "Sorry. I have somewhere else to be."
"What a pity."
He stepped out of the tavern. And immediately, from somewhere inside his mind, the old man's voice came through — fractionally tense, in a way Leonard had never heard before.
"Get to the church. Now."
Leonard blinked. This was the first time he'd ever heard Pallez sound tense about anything. "What's wrong?"
"That tavern…"
Pallez's voice was actually trembling slightly. "It's all Amon."
...
Watching Leonard turn and walk out, Vincent couldn't help but wonder: the man had made a special trip here, done one lap of the room, and left. What was that about?
"Your Majesty."
Stephen lowered his voice beside her. "You came to find me specifically — what did you need?"
Bernadette produced a slip of paper with the Lord of Chaos's three-part honorific written on it and handed it across. "I need you to recite these three sentences in ancient Hermes."
Stephen took the note, then looked up, startled. "This… is a three-part honorific of some being?"
"He's called the Lord of Chaos."
He frowned faintly, working through it. "I've never heard of a presence by that name. Your Majesty, are you asking me to…"
Bernadette answered simply, without elaborating: "He's a relatively benevolent presence. I'm seeking to borrow His power in dealing with the Hidden Sage, and finding suitable followers for Him is what He asked of me in return."
"I understand."
Stephen didn't ask anything further. He lowered his eyes, composed himself, and recited in ancient Hermes, careful and deliberate:
"Ruler of the Realm of Chaos. Restorer of the Unbalanced Scale. Shadow between Order and Rules."
Then he looked back at Bernadette and scratched his head. "Is that enough? No other words needed?"
"No. Once He hears His honorific recited, He'll take notice on His own. What He wants from you after that — He'll tell you Himself."
Bernadette shook her head and moved on. "When are you planning to head back to the Dawn?"
"Not yet."
Stephen smiled easily. "I want to look into this tavern a little more. There's a real chance it has some connection to my family — to Emperor Tudor — and honestly, what I'm even more curious about is what the Moses Ascetic Order and those mirror people came here looking for."
"Alright. Stay safe."
Bernadette walked out of the tavern without another word.
Stephen watched her back disappear through the door, then eased himself back into his chair.
He reached into his coat pocket, drew out a small, perfectly clear crystal monocle, and fitted it over his right eye.
He lifted his glass and swirled it, as if talking to himself. "You'd love to warn your captain, I know. Don't bother worrying. I have absolutely no interest in her — on the contrary, I'm planning to use her to get to Emperor Roselle."
A pause.
"What I need from you now is to recite that three-part honorific again — pray to this 'benevolent' presence, until He makes contact with you. While you're doing that, I'll give you a measure of freedom."
He watched the deep red wine catch the light.
"You're of course completely welcome to spend that free time trying by every means available to shake off my parasitism. Think of it as a game between us."
"Win, and you get your freedom back. Lose, and — well, at worst you're exactly where you are now."
His gaze settled on the swirling wine, as though he could see through it to the helpless soul he'd pushed to the margins of its own body.
"I'll count to three. Then the game begins."
"One. Two. Three."
Stephen's body went rigid. In the next instant, his face drained of colour. His pupils shook violently — the eyes of someone who had just been shown something enormous and terrible.
After several ragged, heaving breaths, he yanked the monocle off his right eye and flung it across the room. Then he spun toward the door and started to run.
His eyes swept the room — and stopped.
The waitress. The customers. The barman. One by one, they all turned to look at him. Every one of them wearing a calm, strange smile. Every one of them, at the same moment, raising a monocle to their eye.
The cold hit him from the top of his head straight down to the soles of his feet.
Tap.
He stopped moving. He forced himself — by pure will — to claw back some scrap of calm. After a moment, he walked quickly to the bar, picked up a pint of ale, and drained it in one go. He muttered under his breath:
"Fine. Let's play."
Every person in the tavern smiled at once. A single voice, speaking from all of them simultaneously:
"Now that's interesting."
...
The Forsaken Land of the Gods. The City of Silver.
Derrick came back to reality and went straight to the City of Silver's library, asking the custodian where to find books on the "Angel of Time," then pushing into the deepest stacks.
His eyes moved quickly from spine to spine along the shelves. He pulled out books and flipped through them rapidly — useful ones went under his arm, useless ones went back. Before long he was cradling a stack of more than a dozen volumes.
He'd thrown himself into this search specifically to gather intelligence on the Angel of Time for Mr. Lovers — material to trade for the later potion formulas and ingredients he needed.
Compared to tracking monsters in the dark to earn commendations, this was almost laughably easy.
Thud.
Derrick pushed a book back into its slot on the shelf, turned — and walked straight into someone. The other person didn't move an inch. Derrick stumbled back two paces, and his entire armload of books cascaded to the floor.
"Sorry, sorry — I wasn't looking where I was going."
He bent to start collecting them, and got his first proper look at who he'd run into.
A woman who appeared to be in her early thirties. Thick silvery-grey hair, slightly curled, worn loose. A pair of light grey eyes that felt, the moment they settled on you, like they were looking through the surface of you to something deeper.
It was Elder Lovia — one of the six members of the City of Silver's council. Not long ago, Derrick had undergone patrol training under her alongside the other recruits.
"I'm sorry, Elder Lovia."
The woman with the striking face made a neutral sound. "No harm done. Watch yourself next time."
She was already turning to go when her gaze dropped to the books scattered across the floor. She paused, bent, and picked up a few. "All of these are on the 'Angel of Time.' You're quite interested in Him?"
"Yes — that's right."
Derrick swallowed, keeping his expression carefully natural. "I came across Him in a textbook recently, but the description was very brief. So I came to find more."
Lovia gave a small nod and handed back the books she'd collected. The corner of her mouth shifted slightly. "You'll probably be disappointed. The Angel of Time's records were buried by time long ago. What these books contain is mostly what later generations pieced together from scattered rumours — accuracy not guaranteed."
"Oh." Derrick's shoulders dropped a little. "Elder Lovia — does the City of Silver really have no reliable materials on Him at all?"
"The Chief might have something."
Which meant it was completely out of Derrick's reach, for now.
"But…"
Lovia paused for a moment, then continued: "The last time I was exploring some temple ruins, I happened to come across a few murals that seemed to depict the Angel of Time. If you're genuinely that interested, you could come along with me next time I go out."
To be continued…
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