The Gate hadn't been the only explosion to rip through Verweald.

Across the city, lines of smoke rose to smudge the hazy horizon, each trail ascending from the hollow of a building blasted by the syndicate or my Absolian brother. The humans who flooded the rain-slicked street were terrified, confused, and thus quick to anger. Their cars collided in the panic, and red-faced men stood in the downpour, screaming at one another, throwing punches and kicks while their women cried for them to stop and sirens wailed like untended children in the background.

The city was a train without brakes careening off the rails. There was only one Absolian now, but if the mages didn't check their behavior, more would come. More always came.

I stared at the sky as the rain lashed at the car window, and wondered when more would descend, when the one called Aurelius would be called to answer for what he'd done. All I'd ever learned about the Absolians stated he was acting far beyond the orders of his King—and the High King was not to be fucked with.

He'd once sentenced more than half his familiars to death because of one man's rebellion.

I can't fathom the reason behind his actions, I mused, lip curling at the pain yet assailing my broken cheek and swollen eye. But they won't stand for one of their own causing such unrest and destruction. More will come.

The question was; would they stop him in time? 

Amoroth knew every avenue, byway, lane, and crevice of Verweald—every unmarked street omitted on maps, every forsaken tunnel barring passage, every bridge and rail and dirt pathway. The humans may've been stuck in Verweald's fetid downtown crush, but the Sin wasn't hampered by the traffic or the growing mob. Once we reached her car in the sublevel, she navigated us past the horde with ease. 

Soon Verweald was behind us, and the black shoulders of the sodden hills surrounded the car.

"Sometimes I wonder why we even bother coming here, why we come to Terrestria," Amoroth uttered under her breath, the words low but audible above the subdued roar of tires on the asphalt. "Why we bother enslaving ourselves to the wills of creatures we could crush with our bare hands, why we put ourselves in mortal peril for them when they spit at us, attack us, savage us. Why do we not leave this realm to them? Why do we not just let it burn?"

I understood her apathy, her anger. How could I not? I yearned to berate the woman and to burn her ears with the unending horrors I'd underwent—but I held in my words, if not my derisive sneer. "How do you think the Isle fell? We were hated, reviled, and hunted like dogs by the Dreaming Children. When the fractus began to tear them apart, we...we did nothing, and because we did nothing, the Isle was ripped to shreds and the world burned. I expect Cuxiel has told you this tale."

The woman said nothing as she continued to drive, swerving around slower moving vehicles. To my relief, the pressure of the Absolian's power wasn't trailing us. "He told me if life doesn't give challenges, it's not worth living. He'd probably see all of this as another great adventure to undertake."

She didn't wish to speak about him. I heard the reluctance in her tone, could see it in the dull sheen of her eyes. The Sin couldn't stay in the city—couldn't remain in the home she'd built for herself brick by bloody brick, and the man who'd been her teacher, her lover, and her closest friend for all her life was gone. I hated her, and yet admired how she managed to remain composed at such a dismal hour.

Looking out the window, I recognized the area, and knew where she was taking us. "We're going to Sara's house?" 

"We're going to your house. I need to wash this filth off of me." She splayed a crimson hand painted in gore. "Then I'm going to leave you to your affairs while I sort out my own." 

The first of Evergreen's houses appeared as we entered the suburban territory. "Where will you go?"

"I'll make for the Continent. It'll be slow going at a mortal pace, but if I hurry, I may reach another Gate before that winged bastard destroys it."

Or she could walk right into her doom. The Absolians could travel almost as fast as the Sins could.

"You were upset by the mage's arrest," Amoroth pondered, pulling my attention from the passage of quiet, unlit houses. "I thought you'd be glad to be rid of him."

I would have been thrilled had the man not also taken his secrets and information with him—but I chose not to divulge that fact to Amoroth. I knew the woman would only laugh if I told her Cage had promised to impart the secret of resurrection, and perhaps I truly was a fool for listening to him, but I couldn't ignore the words. I couldn't ignore the hope.

Now, I had to be logical. Cage was three thousand miles away in Itheria, buried beneath more scripts and wards than could be found in a mage's grimoire. I didn't know what his crime had been or why the Blue Fire Syndicate was so keen on holding him, and I frankly didn't care. Whatever contrived grievance against the black mage thought up by the Blue Fire men would pale to any number of atrocities I'd committed throughout my life.

"The mage will be fine," Amoroth stated as the corner of her mouth twitched. She knew something I didn't.

"You can't be sure." I laid my throbbing cheek against the window and savored the cold press of the glass on my wounded face. "They could be executing the man as we speak."

She scoffed, turning on Sara's—my—street. "The mages are fanatical about due process and habeas corpus. Too many of their number have been burned without cause and were later found to be innocent."

I snorted. Oh, I knew what the Sin spoke of, having been alive to see magekind almost burn themselves right out of existence during the early wars with the Aos Sí and the witches thousands of years ago. The Blue Fire Syndicate had risen from those self-created ashes and had given themselves their tongue-in-cheek name.

Mages were executed by pyre, and—when they burned—blue flames erupted from their bodies.

They'd keep Cage alive for a time, but for how long?

The little house waited as it always did, subdued and woebegone, its driveway empty now that the car had been smashed to bits in the explosion. Amoroth parked the car and twisted in her seat, digging through her unsorted bag for a change of clothes. When she came up empty-handed, having forgotten to grab clothing in her haste, she swore and threw a vitric glare toward the dark house. "Gaspard better have clothes that fit me."

She was out of the vehicle in an instant and disappeared across the sodden, unkempt lawn. I followed at a more sedate pace, thoughts mired in the sickening helplessness of my situation as I came through the front door and shook off the rain. Even had I been a Sin, finding the mage would have been nigh impossible given the security surrounding him.

There had to be something even a wretch like me could do.

The lights were down inside the house, the sound of rushing water coming from the shower in the bathroom. Amoroth would wash the blood of the mages from herself and disappear. It was possible, given the chaos unfolding in the city, I would never see her again, and I didn't know if I should be sad or overjoyed.

I felt nothing.

I shut the door and went to sink into the comfort of the worn armchair, when a soft growl rose from the encompassing dark.

Alarmed, I jumped back as a pair of animal eyes flickered in the shadows, reflecting the ugly, fluorescent glow of the streetlamps outside. The growl was deep and thrummed through the floor beneath my feet as the creature shifted its heavy limbs. I clenched my fists and prepared to attack whatever intruder had come into my house, when a voice spoke out.

"Dammit, Bram! Sit!"

The dog—for it was a dog—barked as he set himself on his hindquarters and his owner rose from her hiding spot behind the coffee table. I could see little in the dark, so with mounting frustration, I stomped over to the light switch and threw it on.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded of the intruder. It was the Baba Yaga priestess, the one named Saule Ozlin. I'd taken Sara to see her several times to have my host's injuries healed.

The woman was sopping wet from the rain, her clothes irrevocably stained. There was blood and other...unsavory spills on her attire. It was difficult to tell what smear was what on the half-drowned girl, but I could smell the difference from across the room. Salt mixed with bile, and the rankness of refuse was covered with that undeniable stench of metal.

King's breath, had the witch liquefied a person?

The priestess was short and petite, barely clearing five feet in height. Her head was shrouded in a mess of wet, drooping curls and kinks, while her pert nose was pink from the cold weather. She was hardly appealing to my particularities, but other mortal men would find her cute—as vomitive as that word was—despite the soup of bone and flesh she'd doused herself in.

"I-is Sara here?" she asked, stuttering with either cold or fear—or both. Oh, I knew the witch was terrified of me. She didn't know I wasn't a Sin any longer, though I doubted it would take her long to realize it. I relished her fear, basked in it, because it'd been too long since someone had paled at my approach and had respected my presence. I'd often hated that innate response, had felt its barbs and hate for far too many centuries, but it'd become my normalcy as a Sin.

I missed it terribly.

"Why?" I asked, tone dipping into the cold, calculated precision that sent chills down mortal spines. "Why are you here, skulking in the dark, searching for my host, witch?"

The girl trembled and the dog—feathered for some unfathomable reason—growled. I grinned as I stepped forward and ignored her tenacious mutt, then winced when the action tugged on my broken facial bones. The witch paused when she saw my reaction, her trembling coming to a sudden stop as confusion pulled her brows together.

I knew it'd only be a matter of time before she realized something was off.

"Where is Sara?" she demanded, bolder now. "I want to talk to Sara."

"Then find a medium," I retorted as I sat on the couch, bored already with this discourse.

"W-what does that mean?"

"It means she's dead, you dimwit." I felt nothing at the admission, though the cold gripping my insides like a steel vise tightened with renewed vigor. The witch looked like she may pass out, her knees knocking together as she backed up and almost landed in the empty hearth. I rolled my eyes. "I didn't kill her."

That did little to dissuade the girl, but at that moment the bathroom door banged open, and as a cloud of hot steam billowed from the shower's confines, the Sin of Lust came tromping into the living room, dressed in some of Sara's ill-fitting castoffs.

She froze when she spotted Saule and the dog. "Does this house just attract magical filth, Darius?"

I shrugged, pensive mood thickening. "It seems so."

The witch stomped a tiny foot as her face tightened with indignation. "I came here for Sara," Saule quipped. "Not for you brimstone-biting gargoyles, thank you very much!"

Amoroth snorted and swung her damp hair from her eyes as she lowered herself onto the sofa's arm. "Well she's not currently in residence, little witch. Only this one." She gave my head a deprecating pat.

My narrowed gaze sliced in her direction. "Remember, I know all the ways in which you can die."

The Sin removed her hand.

"T-then I'll talk to you," the witch said, mastering her fear as she stared directly into my injured face, her eyes flicking toward the wound. "Because I don't have anywhere else to go. Those damn flash-bangs attacked my coven!"

I kept my expression slack, but my mind was whirring behind my stony front. We must contain the situation. We must contain the realm. Verbatim, those had been the words of the mage named Kiev when questioned about his actions. Did that containment also include the witch covens? Just how large scale was this mage insurrection?

"They took Mistress Voronin," Saule pleaded, hands wringing together as that abnormal beast of hers whined. "They said they took her to the wardens!"

Yet another complication snatched from the streets and dragged to that infernal Blue-Iron prison.

"It makes considerable sense—," Amoroth muttered, fingering the cuff of Sara's worn sweater with a grimace. She had a burner phone in her hand and was texting without thought. "For the mages to round up the coven Mistresses. They're the only ones capable of rallying you lot. Without them, you dither about like lost sheep looking for their shepherd."

If the witch took exception to Lust's comparison, she didn't say. Thunder tolled outside the house and the three of us tensed, private memories flashing before our eyes of what the thunder could bring.

"Take me to Itheria," Saule begged, looking first to me, then to Amoroth. She couldn't know who Amoroth was, though perhaps she understood what she was. The witch knew only that Grace was a Sin and that I, for whatever reason, was not. "Please. I have to get the Mistress back. If they kill her, the coven—." She stopped, swallowing audibly. "Please. I'll do...anything."

Amoroth crossed her arms as her eyes darkened and the room chilled. The burner phone was tossed aside. "I don't want a bloody contract with you, witch," she stated with clear disdain. "We don't parlay with your kind."

"You should take us both there," I interjected, my heart beating faster as I seized upon the idea. I needed to go to Itheria, be there. I hadn't the faintest clue on how I'd manage to steal an incarcerated black mage, but I'd figure it out. I would. I just had to be there. "Take us to Itheria."

She looked at me as if I'd grown a second head. "Why on earth would you want to go there?!"

"Don't question me."

The Sin did just that, ignoring the fire in my statement. "Is it because of—?"

"I said don't question me!" I rose from the couch and paced, tossing a glance toward the witch when Amoroth lifted a hand in question. I didn't want the witch to know about Cage, just as I didn't want Amoroth to know about the mage's knowledge of resurrection. Experience had taught me to keep my knowledge close to myself, lest I want to come back and haunt me. Sins and witches were among those capable of twisting words and wishes against someone. I didn't want Amoroth to know how deeply I longed for Sara to come back, and I didn't want to witch to know my reason for going to Itheria. I didn't want them to twist my goals—either inadvertently or on purpose.

"Well, I'm not taking either of you to Itheria." Her heel bounced against the couch's side, her feet still bare. Sara's shoes wouldn't fit her. "That's just lunacy."

"But why?" Saule jumped forward, almost tripping on her dog. "Why? You can do it, can't you? I thought all Sins could teleport?"

Teleport. I rubbed my temple to dissuade the headache building there. Yet another reason to withhold information from witchkind.

"I'm fully capable of teleporting—." Amoroth's tongue lingered on the word, amused. "But I won't. I can't. Taking two of you at once would be impossible, thus I'd have to take four trips: two to Itheria, one back here, and one away from Itheria before the Absolian came crashing down upon it when he followed me."

The witch was confused again, her face scrunched. "It would follow you?"

Amoroth nodded.

She was right, of course. She couldn't take us through the Realm. I hardly cared about the witch, but Amoroth couldn't transport me to the mage city without bringing the Absolian's attention with us. "You could say the Absolians hunt by motion," I explained, twisting my hand and wrist in a circular gesture. "It's a crude metaphor, but apt in this summation. Transporting would attract his eye, and with every subsequent jump, the probability of him attacking would increase ten-fold. The Absolian would follow us to Itheria."

The bastard. There had to be some way—!

Amoroth let out a forceful exhalation as she stood and kicked over her bag. Without a word, she unzipped the top to rummage through the interior as we watched, coming up with a large wad of American bills.

"Here—," she barked as she shoved the money into my hands and I struggled to hold all of it. "Buy a plane ticket, moron."

Her car keys were added to the teetering pile as I frowned, not willing to admit I hadn't considered that before. Airport. It sounded so...simple, but as my shadeborn had once mentioned, sometimes the easiest avenue to one's goal is through the most unassuming means. The simple things were too often discounted because they weren't flashy or impressive.

We'd uncovered the identity of the Exordium by going to a tax assessor's office, of all places. Trivial, but efficient.

Amoroth had her bag in hand and was headed to the door. I followed as bills fluttered from my hands and the Sin stepped out into the rain. There was a black, unmarked car idling at the curb, no doubt summoned by her earlier use of the burner phone. Two suited employees exited the vehicle when the Sin appeared, their hands keeping within conspicuous distance of their firearms.

"Lust," I said, causing the woman to pause and turn to respond. I considered her profile, the stern set of her jaw, the bleakness of her eyes and the exhaustion of her stance. Was she tired already? The hunt had only just begun.

"What?"

This was possibly the last time we'd meet, if Amoroth managed to escape and if I didn't die in my questionable pursuit of the black mage. I'd known her for almost all her life, from when she'd been a naïve mortal girl whom Cuxiel had doted upon. Such a parting should have been accompanied by a lasting remark, something impressive, but I'd never been one for pretty speeches and she was too weary to be glib.

Instead, I only nodded as stray drops of rain struck my face. "Run fast."

The Sin of Lust smirked, her eyes downcast as she retreated to the waiting car and her lackeys ushered her inside. In a squeal of tires and rumbling pistons, she was gone.