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“I know,” I replied. “I understand. I mean, what happened-.”
“Lily,” Isaac interrupted me shaking his head as he stepped forward away from the window sill. “I don’t what to think about what he said… I don’t think I can right now. I just want to know…if you are okay.”
“Me?” I asked surprised.
“Of course,” Isaac responded quickly. “I heard Felix talking to Eve earlier this morning and he said you didn’t let him heal you.”
“I’m fine,” I shrugged it off quickly. “I mean, physically I’m sore yeah, but I’m not continuously bleeding, so Felix doesn’t need to heal every little bruise.”
Isaac took a moment to speak as he tilted his head a little. “Only physically?”
I sighed as our eyes meet. “Of course…there’s a lot going on my head right now…I…there’s so much.”
“Lily,” Isaac said cautiously.
“You know what I find good when I get like this?” I asked him, not expecting an answer. “Sitting on the fire escape.”
Isaac didn’t question it and without a word he climbed out his window first and onto the fire escape and I followed him there. He sat down on one of the stairs of the fire escape and without a thought I sat down next to him. The stair was so small that we were forced to touch legs to fit together on the stairs, and sitting like this felt comforting, because I knew he was here with me, he was safe.
“You sat out here when you found out you were an Insigne,” Isaac noted.
I nodded and leant forward a little. “When things get too full on in my head I like to escape and…I like the fresh air and I like that from up here we can see all these buildings. I like that I can look out through all these buildings and apartments and realise that everyone is having a problems that they have to deal with, not just me.”
Isaac didn’t respond to me and when I looked over at him I realised he was looking out to the buildings. I saw him breathe in deeply and breathe out slowly. Whatever he was feeling, I still couldn’t work it out.
“What’s going to happen to the council?” I whispered suddenly.
I saw Isaac curl his lips together before turned back to look at me. “They probably… don’t exist anymore. You heard what he said…my guess is that every elder in the world is dead, and without our leaders, there’s no council.”
“He killed them all? Or at least got his demons to do it?” I frowned.
“Eve is trying to figure out, I think,” Isaac muttered, “but it wouldn’t shock me. He wants to take control and with the council existing that would be next to impossible.”
“So you don’t think he’s dead?”
One of the many thoughts I knew had passed through my brain included the thought that Odon wasn’t dead. I didn’t see him fall, but I knew it. I felt him rush by me, but whole part didn’t believe that killed him.
“It’s safer to presume he’s not dead,” Isaac nodded. “He said that he would take both of you out of the window and I presume he wanted to take you alive…and demons can fly, so no… I don’t think he’s dead.”
“So this…all of this isn’t over? Not really?” I asked him as I sat up straight. “Maybe there’s no council, no one telling us what to do but the demons go and killing, right? So what do we do?”
Isaac didn’t answer me immediately and when he looked into his eyes I could see he was trying to read me, understand what I was feeling. I didn’t think that was possible right now though. My brain felt like it was turning to mush and all I wanted was to understand what to do now.
“I don’t know, Lily,” he said softly. “What do you think? What do you want to do next? Because we still have that dagger, demons still exist, and we can still fight them, and if he’s really alive…then we will have to fight them. So it’s up to you. What do you want to do next?”
I felt myself swallow. I blinked more than once as I processed what he had said. He was right though. I still had this dagger, one that I couldn’t leave in my bedroom this morning so it was strapped to my belt again. Demons still existed, and they were still evil and the absence of the council just meant they would start raging rampage, and the council wouldn’t be able to direct Insignes to where the danger was, and if Odon really wasn’t dead, then they would still come for me. I still had to protect this dagger, I still had to protect everyone else, but now I needed to know how to do it right, and to do it well.
“I want to learn to be what I am. I want to learn to be an Insigne.”