Epilogue

  [That same day, late evening at Eric Clarkson’s manor]

  Late that evening, the front door of Eric Clarkson’s manor swung open with a quiet creak, and Eric himself walked in. Disheveled, openly furious — he looked nothing like the always-composed Lord Prophet, famous for his outward coldness and composure.

  “Finally!” Elizabeth breathed with relief. She’d been pacing circles around the empty living room all this time, and now rushed joyfully to meet her husband.

  “I couldn’t sleep until you got back from the General Staff… Honey? How are you? How’s Lorelei? Did you manage to get her away from the Inquisitors?”

  “She’ll have to spend some time with the Inquisition,” Eric replied evenly, embracing his wife and kissing her cheek.

  “How’s Zael?”

  “Bad. Alive, but he’s out of commission for a long time. In a coma. The general latched onto that, so getting Lori out of the Inquisition’s clutches won’t be easy. Plus, she put up serious resistance several Inquisitors were badly hurt. It’s all complicated, basically. The general was on a rampage trying to throw all the Fortemins out of the General Staff, but Moris and I managed to smooth things over for now it’s important for us to stay at the General Staff. But the situation is extremely tense. We’ve got a lot of work ahead.”

  Elizabeth sighed heavily, running her palm across Eric’s cheek, peering anxiously into his face.

  “Today has been absolutely insane… What do we do, Eric? Tell me you know what to do, please!..”

  “Forgive me, my darling, but right now I need some time alone,” Eric smiled crookedly.

  “We’ll talk later.”

  He gently moved Elizabeth aside and headed toward his study. Ellie didn’t try to stop him, only watching her husband go with a worried gaze, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  Once in his study, Eric closed the door behind him. He didn’t lock it, but he did carefully layer the room with soundproofing charms, swept his tense gaze over the perfect order in the room… and then started hurling everything off his desk, cursing freely.

  “He was supposed to hand over the bracelet, damn it!!” Eric shouted into the void.

  “He was supposed to!! What the hell is happening?!!”

  Eric slammed his fist into the glass shelves of the bookcase with all his might. They shattered instantly under the force of his fury and magic. The contents of the shelves crashed to the floor, and the immaculate study was transformed into a wrecked room in the blink of an eye.

  Eric leaned against his desk, breathing heavily, staring at the notes spread across it.

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  “I couldn’t have been wrong… Could I?” he muttered to himself.

  “Or could I? But then how?..”

  He snarled furiously and flipped the desk over with a crash, kicked it hard, raised his hands to the ceiling and screamed desperately into the void:

  “Give me a sign, damn it!”

  Eric slumped to the floor, now littered with broken glass and shards of vases and other fragile objects that had stood on the shelves moments before. He sat there for a while, staring hard at the photos and notes on the opposite wall.

  That entire wall, floor to ceiling, was covered with countless photos, notes, newspaper clippings, copies of book pages. It all seemed to be pinned up in chaotic order. Between all these photos and endless notes were dozens of arrows, dates, short encrypted annotations. No one could make sense of this chaos except Eric himself. Right now his gaze was boring into the photos of Lori and Calypso, which hung near a golden spiral-shaped rune drawn on the wall.

  For some time Eric sat motionless in absolute silence and darkness, and then he gasped and pressed his hand to his solar plexus. A tiny blue light suddenly emerged from there, hovering for a moment before Eric, then slowly drifting toward the wall of notes opposite him.

  Eric watched the blue light intently as it split in two just before the wall and flew in opposite directions, striking the wall and dissolving into two photos, which lit up with a bright blue glow. Eric immediately jumped up and went to these photos, took them off the wall, staring intently at the images. One photoh showed Lorelei from behind, from some family celebration. She was wearing a dress with a completely open back, and her arms were spread wide — in that lighting, they looked remarkably like wings. The photo had been taken back when Lorelei didn’t yet have the large tattoo covering her entire back. The second photo showed a young Calypso, also from some celebration. In the photo he was laughing, talking to someone off-camera, standing near a mirror. Calypso’s reflection in the mirror appeared darkened due to the lighting during the shot, with strangely glittering eyes from the multicolored reflections.

  Eric stared intently at the two photos, his eyes going glassy the way they always did when visions came.

  For about a minute he stood there, staring at the photos without blinking, then shook his head and exclaimed loudly:

  “So that’s it… I just couldn’t see the whole picture at once, right? Because it wasn’t time for that knowledge yet… I understand… I understand!!”

  A happy smile lit up his face. A genuine smile of someone who had just grasped something very important.

  “It’ll actually be better this way, won’t it? Or rather: this is how it was meant to be, right? Because… It can’t be… Oh… I understand!! Thank you!!”

  He addressed that last word to the void, but a gust of wind from nowhere playfully ruffled Eric’s hair in the closed room — a gesture he knew all too well, knowing perfectly well that this was the universe giving him an approving pat on the head.

  The door cracked open, and Elizabeth stepped into the study.

  “Honey, are you alright? I’m worried, it’s too quiet…”

  She trailed off, gaping at the destruction in the study and the broken glass underfoot.

  “It’s a bit… messy in here,” Elizabeth smirked.

  “Just a tad,” Eric grinned broadly.

  “But that’s nothing. What matters is this.”

  He waved the two photos he’d taken from the wall and walked over to Elizabeth, pulling her into a tight embrace and, caught up in his emotions, lifting her into the air and spinning her around.

  “What matters is that I wasn’t wrong! I’m still in the game, and I’m the one calling the shots.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “The important thing is that I understand,” Eric chuckled.

  “I have a plan… A shitty one, but a good one. And the next move is mine.”

  END OF BOOK ONE