“It’s a convenient story,” Four said. “Neat and tidy. But why should we believe any of this?”
I hesitated, then decided there was no reason to lie.
Like it or not, we were all in this together now.
“Because we found the remnants of the Emmútari,” I said. “Elise is with their record-keepers now, looking for anything that might help us move forward from this demon-hunt bullscud.”
Garrett did a double-take. “That’s where your lady went? I thought they scattered from the party to meet one of Fields’ intel contacts.”
“Yeah, well maybe you would’ve caught the full story if you two hadn’t been too busy swiving in the woods.”
Four and Eight turned shocked stares on Garrett, who opened his mouth to counter, then glanced down at a sleeping Siren and gave a shrug as if to say, Whatever. Worth it.
“But…” Four shook his head clear of whatever woods-swiving thoughts he was still on and turned to me. “Move forward? From this? The High Cleric hates us. Deeply. And so does the rest of the world, now. There’s no moving forward from that. What are you possibly hoping to find that could change that?”
I didn’t have an answer. Never had since we’d started all this.
Even if Elise found hard proof of these stories, even if it was strong enough to convince the public to question the Sanctum’s word…
“Grop moving forward,” Garrett said. “Surviving this scudstorm is the best we can hope for. Eventually, the mobs will forget about us and go back to their lives. It’s not like they can spot us in a crowd.”
“Which is why they’re probably gonna murder another few thousand innocent people before they give up,” I said. “You’re okay with that?”
Garrett shrugged. “If the dumb bastards wanna kill each other out of superstition, I don’t really see how it’s our job to stop them. I’m all for protecting our own. Scud, I’m even for protecting harmless civies, too. But I’m not about to stand up waving and shouting just to keep the angry mobs from incurring some friendly fire.”
“And when these rakul show up? What do you think’s gonna happen to those harmless civies when Enochia’s facing an invasion of the creatures that make the raknoth look like common foot soldiers?”
“Something tells me we’ll all be long dead by then, kid,” Garrett said. “Assuming these things even exist at all.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to show him the raw power of the beast in my memory. Wanted to tell them all to imagine what we could do if there were more of us, if we didn’t have to hide our abilities. But I couldn’t seem to find the words. Couldn’t seem to find anything but the walls themselves pressing in on me, telling me that I was a naive child, and that Johnny had been right, and that I’d been deluding myself ever thinking I could stop what was happening.
“The planet doesn’t want us, Raish,” Four said, as if reading my thoughts. “There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“What we should be focusing on,” Garrett said, “is how we’re going to keep our people safe, and what we can do to find the gifted who are out there lost in the crowd right now.”
The conversation livened somewhat after that, Four and Eight perking up now that the subject had shifted from my childish fantasies of world peace to something tangible and practical: our survival.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that a trio of ex-Seekers couldn’t see much hope of us ever escaping persecution for the simple fact of our existence. They’d spent their lives doing the hunting, after all. But that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
I listened half-heartedly as they discussed the logistics of the isolated retreat the other ex-Seekers had apparently established somewhere near the Faol Mountains—how many Shapers were already there. What defenses were in place. How many more they could likely take on before they grew beyond their capacity to hide and supply the settlement. Where else they might begin to establish similar bases.
Bit by discouraging bit, I drifted back into my own thoughts, wondering how I’d ever thought this had been anything other than a grab and rescue mission. Somehow, when Garrett and Siren had showed up to pull my ass out of the fire, I’d assumed we were all on the same page. That our rocky alliance was a necessary first step in some grand Shaper revolution.
But it was all just one more instance of me trying to play the hero, I realized now. Spouting out my ideals and charging into battle without looking back. Because if I had—if I’d bothered to take a good hard look at the situation, if I’d been honest with myself from the start…
Would it have changed anything?
I rolled over on my side and closed my eyes, trying to shut it all out, wishing more than anything that Elise were there to take me in her arms and tell me that it was going to be okay. To tell me what was right. To center me, as she so often did.
But she was off on her own journey now, delving into the knowledge I’d been deemed unworthy to receive.
And maybe that’s what was really bothering me, underneath everything else. Not that Elise had passed the test that I’d failed. But the realization that maybe that stupid little helmet had been right, and that maybe that was exactly why she’d passed: because she could center me in a way I could never seem to accomplish myself. Because without her and Johnny, left to my own devices, I probably would’ve already fallen off into madness by now.
Because somewhere along the line, I seemed to have lost myself amid the chaos.
What was I anymore, aside from a walking bag of raknoth secrets and arcane power that was as likely to detonate any situation I touched as I was to defuse it?
I didn’t know the answer. Nor did I know how I’d ever had the audacity to think someone who didn’t know that answer could be the one to bring an end to a thousand years of systemic injustice.
So I lay there in the medica, trying to find sleep as Garrett and the others finally lapsed back into a thoughtful silence that was broken only by the hums and rhythmic whirs of our various pumps and monitors—all of us awake with our abject listlessness, none of us saying a word. Not until Four perked up in his medica bed, brandishing a tablet.
“High Cleric’s going live,” was all he said before he diverted the feed to the room’s main wall display with a flick of his fingers.
I wasn’t particularly interested in what His Holiness had to say about the day’s events, mostly because I’d been through the mud in so many bullscud cover-ups by this point that I was pretty sure I could’ve written the High Cleric’s monologue myself. Still, I couldn’t help but listen as he gave his heartfelt prayers for the victims who’d fallen in what had clearly been the latest and most devastating attack in an escalating pattern of demonic violence. There was no mention of the raknoth. I didn’t need to pull the reel vids to know there’d be no evidence of Seven’s red-eyed slip up at the end of our fight, either. It was all pretty much as I’d expected.
At least until the High Cleric began outing the attackers by name.
Not that I was surprised to hear my own. I was the Demon of gropping Divinity. Everyone knew my name. But no one—myself included—knew the names of Adam Drove, and Enid Trugden.
“Scud,” Four said.
No one knew the names of Garrett Fellwood and Alexia Arkova.
“Son of a bitch,” Garrett growled, clutching a sleeping Alexia’s hand.
The names Radnor Brattuck and Lilith Gretchen were also thrown out there, but judging by the lack of sharp hisses in the room, I was guessing those names must’ve belonged to Five and Seven.
And besides, I was too busy watching as Garrett turned to Four and Eight with the oddest demeanor. If I had to put a word to it, I’d say he almost looked ashamed—not unlike Siren had looked when I’d first found out her real name—but I couldn’t begin to understand exactly why.
“Nice to meet you, Adam,” Garrett muttered. “Enid.”
Four and Eight traded a glance, and they looked more rattled than I think I’d ever seen them.
“
Garrett,” Four finally said, tilting his head.
“I don’t like this,” Eight said flatly, as if the look on her stony face had left any doubt about the matter.
It was a strange moment. Almost strange enough to distract from the High Cleric’s closing remarks. But not quite.
“Allow me to make one thing perfectly clear, my children,” the cleric was saying on the display, gazing out at Enochia with the sternest of looks. “Those good citizens of Enochia, those loyal children of Alpha who continue to serve and abide by His law, have nothing to fear. We will protect you. We will apprehend the creatures responsible for this vile attack, and they will be brought to know the swift justice of Alpha’s Might. To my loyal children, I bid you rest easy tonight, and steel yourselves for the work ahead.
“But to anyone else hearing this message, to those who would dare to harbor a demon or indeed even to lend one of their ilk the slightest of aid, I give you this warning. We will no longer tolerate your perverse treachery. We will no longer show you and your dark masters the decency of mercy. Not when the stones of our own White Tower stand slicked with the blood of the innocent. Not when factions of our own Legion maneuver to conspire against us. Not when the very sanctity of our spirits stands imperiled.
“So to those of you who would think to oppose our holy right to uphold the Will of Alpha, to those of you who would raise arms against us in defense of these seven demons and those like them, be you a broom maiden or a High General, hear me now: lay down your arms, withdraw your aid from your dark masters, and you may yet find your way back to Alpha’s Light. But resist, and you will suffer His almighty wrath.”
With that, the broadcast cut to standby.
“Well that wasn’t oddly specific or anything,” Garrett muttered, swiping the display off.
“You know,” Four finally said after a long, heavy silence, “I think I preferred it when no one realized yet that they wanted me dead.”
“Welcome to the club, Adam,” I said, then immediately regretted my careless words.
It felt wrong somehow, worrying myself over upsetting any of these people, but I couldn’t help it at the pained, almost frightened look that touched his face at the sound of his own name coming from my mouth.
“Four,” I corrected myself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
I trailed off, uncertain as to exactly what it was that I’d done to the ex-Seeker, but Four was already shaking off my apology, his expression grim.
“No, you’re right. I don’t see any good reason to cling to the name they gave me,” he said, jutting his chin at the display. “I don’t belong to the Sanctum anymore. I don’t see why my true name should either.”
He turned to Eight and reached a hand over the space between their beds. “I’ll be Adam if you’ll be Enid.”
“I hate that name,” Eight said quietly. Her jaw hardened. “But I hate them more.” She nodded and reached for his hand. “Adam it is, then.”
“Enid,” he replied, his face breaking into a soft smile. “It feels strange, doesn’t it?”
“Feels stranger watching,” Garrett muttered, “trust me.”
I expected that the salty remark would kill the moment, that Adam and Enid would release one another’s hands self-consciously, and that the ex-Seekers—or scud, I might as well just say it, my allied Shapers—would return straight back to their solemn bickering. But Adam laughed instead—a light chuckle that started in his lungs and spread through the medica room like a jovial infection, catching on Enid’s lips, alighting in Garrett’s eyes, tickling at my own chest.
Before I knew it, we were all laughing, and I couldn’t for the life of me have said why.
It was an odd kind of laughter, tinged with an almost frantic, desperate quality. It gripped us until my battered sides ached with it and it occurred to me that it really was an infection of sorts—a kind of respiratory virus that had invaded our innards and now sought to shake them loose of all the pain and fear and near-death realizations that we’d all been through earlier that day.
When Siren stirred and tried to murmur a bleary question about what she’d missed, we just laughed harder.
“Grop them,” Garrett said when we’d finally regained our sobriety.
He didn’t have to explain which them he meant. It wasn’t hard to guess from our position on the pointy end of the mob’s collective demon skewers. And maybe Garrett had the right idea. Maybe it really was time to say grop them—to say farewell and good riddance to the Enochian masses, to turn instead to the challenge of preserving and even building the ranks of Shapers from the uncrowded corners of our fair planet. Maybe it was time to tell Alton Parker to space off with his vaunted secrets and his doomsday predictions. It had always been a fool’s errand to think I could do anything about them anyway. I saw that now.
All this time, I’d been fighting to protect what I’d thought were my people.
But maybe it was time to accept that my people were a much smaller tribe than I’d originally thought, and that my grand efforts to kick start the Shaper Revolution of Enochia would be infinitely more useful applied to the simple but monumental task of survival. Because no matter who thought what about our plans moving forward, and no matter how much we wanted to pretend like any of us were tough enough to rise above it all, I was pretty sure we all agreed on one thing.
We’d survived the day, but we weren’t even close to being in the clear.
31
Unholy Oaths
By the time Glenbark summoned us to Central Command the next morning, I was just about ready to swear off my powers of responsibility completely, lay down at her feet, and acquiesce to whatever she deemed was right. Because if there was any one thing I was certain of after an evening mired in my roommates’ cynicism and my own self-doubt, it was that I sure as scud wasn’t qualified to make the call anymore—not about anything more important than my breakfast choice, at least.
“You doing okay?” Johnny asked me quietly as we approached the small gathering of officers and ex-Seekers outside Glenbark’s office.
“Are you?” I asked, thinking of Annabelle.
I half-expected him to withdraw, but by the playful way he scrunched his face up, I knew I had my friend back from the haze that’d understandably claimed us both the previous day. It lightened the load in my chest by a few slivers, but that hardly brought me back up to sunshine and flowers status.
“Hal, what I said yesterday was—”
“Pretty spot on, as far as I can tell,” I said.
“Oh no.” He glanced past me to Garrett and the others. “They didn’t drag you back down to the dark place, did they?”
“I’ve been an idiot, Johnny.” I looked from him to Garrett and back. “Someone had to tell me. Might as well have been all of you on the same day.”
“So that’s a yes, then,” he said, frowning in their general direction.
“They really weren’t that bad,” I said. “We even kind of bonded, I think.”
“Well, isn’t that wonderful?” he said, turning back to me with his fiery red brows held high. “Clearly it worked wonders for your sense of self-worth.”
I shrugged. “Like it or not, I’m pretty sure you were right yesterday, Johnny.”
His eyebrows reached higher. “I didn’t know what I was saying yesterday, Hal. And yeah, maybe there was some truth to it, but…” He shook his head. “Look, broto, I know things have been looking pretty bleak lately, but—”
“If you say the night is always darkest before the dawn…”
“I was gonna remind you that, heroes or not, we might all be raknoth food right now if it hadn’t been for you and Carlisle. And that there’s still hope as long as we’re here with Freya, and Lise is off doing her thing with Captain Creepy Nose.” He cocked his head. “Also, the night is always darkest before the d—”
“Okay, okay,” I said, shaking my head and failing to suppress a small smile. “Thank you for all that. But seriously, you saw the High Cleric’s br
oadcast last night, right?”
He nodded, clearly not liking where this was going.
“What if we’ve already lost?” I asked. “I’m running around worrying about an alien threat that may or may not ever find this planet, and I think it’s time to accept that maybe I’ve just been too blind to see that maybe there was never any winning at all.”
“Okay,” Johnny said, nodding slowly to himself and looking around as if he were physically searching for one of many counter-lessons he’d prepared for just such an emergency. “Look around us, Hal,” he finally said. “What do you see?”
I said nothing, waiting for him to get on with it and make his point. But he only watched me expectantly , waiting for me to answer what I thought had been a rhetorical question.
I sighed, looking around. “Walls. I see walls. And a bunch of rebel apostates manning them.”
“Exactly,” Johnny said with a clap of his hands. “Apostates. Rebels. We’ve got nearly two-thousand people on this base alone, all flying the Team Enochia flag, all doing it even after Freya made it clear that you and the murder squad over there are part of that team. And what’s that tell us?”
I scowled at his playfully patronizing tone, resisting the urge to point out that it hardly mattered, all things considered.
“It tells me that that’s two-thousand people who are willing to give your demon ass the benefit of the doubt,” he continued, unperturbed. “Now, I know it might not seem like much when you stack it against Team Stabby-Stab’s numbers, but that’s still two-thousand victories by my count. Two-thousand more victories than it sounds like you woke up with this morning. And that’s not half bad for a day’s work, right?”
I stared at my friend, waiting for the arguments to come—that even with a sturdy fortress around us, two-thousand people couldn’t compete against the entire world. That reframing the hard facts with bullscud positivity wasn’t going to do anything to pull our collective ass out of the fire. That we were living right smack in the middle of a fae tale if we believed for one second that any of this could make a difference when the Sanctum, and most of the planet with them, had already made up their minds.
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