"Leu?" A lanky girl with reddish braids placed a hand on Leudora's shoulder. Leudora felt her smooth touch but did not flinch. Instead she lifted a finger to silence whatever comment her niece had prepared.
"The Veil resonates strangely in my ears. This shouldn't happen." She snapped her fingers, listening to the soft trills echoing through air. "Almost like a birdsong." Spinning on her heel, Leudora headed toward the stairs in the center of the Eastern Railway station, her long black coat flapping behind her like a heavy curtain stirred by a gentle breeze. Her niece Amaltheia did not lag behind, her attentive gaze focused on Leudora's finely sculpted features.
She was used to unpleasant scrutiny. Most people stared at her with a mixture of fear and curiosity. On a rare occasion, she registered admiration in their minds. Oscillating between weariness and amusement, Leudora had learnt to ignore both like she did wind gusts – powerful as they were, they always passed.
She slipped past ignorant bystanders and hurried forward, short windswept hair obscuring her vision in a blur of dark auburn. Amaltheia lingered by her side, always trying to glean more from her composed face than Leudora was willing to reveal. Leudora's pallid complexion and the feverish gleam in her grey eyes gave off an otherworldly vibe that many found captivating. Amaltheia was no exception.
She stopped, staring at the familiar contours of the platform, tasting the air heavy with unshed rain. White fingers picked at a silver octagon pendant hanging from her neck. She was still wearing the sign of a Fasma scholar even though the Archon had expelled her years ago. Old habits, like old regrets, refused to die. It was only when Amaltheia drew closer that Leudora dropped the pendant and clasped her hands behind her back.
"We are being followed," Amaltheia said quietly.
"Most definitely." Leudora stared into the distance, an amused smirk frozen on her fine lips.
"You sound as if nothing surprises you any longer."
"Few things do." She scoffed and continued walking. "You have no reason to share my ideas or to trust me. Yet, given the circumstances, we could both use the help of Professor Asenova. Your brief excursion will benefit all."
Amaltheia nodded gravely.
"You trust me enough to ask your former mentor to meet me in Bucharest despite the travel ban imposed upon our family. I should consider myself honored."
"It is ironic, I must admit." The muscles of her arm tensed when Amaltheia grabbed her shoulder. Leudora lifted a slanted eyebrow. "You want to read me, Amaltheia. I would expect you to know better. Save your energy."
"Do you truly believe I can muster an alliance with Despina Asenova, and secure her help?" she asked. Leudora looked past her, testing Amaltheia's patience.
"Professor Asenova alone cannot lift the travel ban imposed on the Lascaris. But she can influence others to take your side when you return." She paused. "She is the most powerful Offcast alive, although few are smart enough to see that."
Amaltheia scoffed and swallowed her reply. Leudora smirked bitterly: it was Amaltheia's time to deliver a customary speech about the great legacy of their kin and the fundamental injustice of the Realm. This time, she was too tired to listen. Her place had never been with the Lascaris. She had never intended to join them. Was Amaltheia truly so indifferent to the single legacy that mattered – to their past? It alone concealed the reason for the Veil's sudden decay. It alone hid the answers to the mysteries that shaped the world. They lived between pasts and futures, not knowing either.
A small wrinkle crossed Amaltheia's smooth forehead. "Despina Asenova is a time-master. She may come from a family of energy-twisters, but she is not exactly like us."
Leudora scoffed and quickened her pace. "She is a Psychic. And so are we. Besides, Professor Asenova is unique. Few have a gift for setting fire to the minds of men. She does." The corner of Leudora's lips trembled. "This talent is dangerous."
"Dangerous?" There was an edge to Amaltheia's voice that Leudora found almost desperate. "You speak so highly of her, yet… She did not lift a finger to prevent your expulsion from the Fasma. Why didn't she influence those knowledge-worshipping colleagues of yours? Couldn't she do anything to stop them from ruining your life?"
A familiar feeling of unease clawed its way back into Leudora's mind.
"What do you want me to say?" She lifted her head and stared at the intertwining beams that supported the roof of the Railway Station. Metal rods and stained glass distracted her from Amaltheia's somber face. She could not give Amaltheia the answers she sought. Despite Leudora's willful ignorance, her niece persisted.
"You are nothing like a Lascari. You give up, when we fight."
Under different circumstances, Leudora would have taken her comment for a compliment. Now, it sounded almost ironic. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, but it surfaced as a bitter sneer instead.
Amaltheia continued, "My other aunts, my grandmother, even my father - they are all trying to restore their status, to revoke the Council's decision, and they keep failing! But you… you can do so much! And yet you won't! You're sending me to Despina Asenova. What will you do? Stay here, in Budapest?"
"I fight my battles in my mind, Amaltheia. That is the crucial difference between me and the rest of the Lascaris, including your beloved aunts, Lorei and Laurenția."
Amaltheia shook her head and sauntered to the edge of the platform, huffing like an angry bull. Scrutinizing the sleek lines of a humming train, Leudora followed her niece, her pace now slow and measured. Amaltheia waited for her, pulling at the seams of her elegant jacket, and biting her lips.
"You say you are a planner… You want to predict all outcomes, consider all variables, know all exceptions. Is that why you forced me to wear this strange gravity-repulsing harness?" she asked.
Leudora's eyebrow twitched. "It may prove useful. You can never be too safe around gravity-switchers and light-benders."
Amaltheia frowned.
"It's heavy and tight like a bug's shell."
"Perhaps," Leudora shrugged. She traced the markings on the train with supple fingers, screening the rusty signs on the metal surface. It did not take her long to find the right car. When Amaltheia prepared to board the train, she leaned over to Leudora, grabbing her shoulder. "Lorei has hired people to spy on me. And all you care about is a stupid harness."
Leudora gave her an almost condescending glance. "Do you believe I lost all my wits after I got expelled from the Fasma?"
"No."
"That is a relief."
"What will you do to them?" Amaltheia climbed the steps, staring expectantly at Leudora. All she could manage was a derisive scoff.
"The most terrifying thing a monster like me can do. Nothing."
A sudden shift in Amaltheia's expression almost startled her. Leudora saw defiance linger in the depth of her niece's dark-blue eyes.
"You are no monster to me. However many you killed those 16 years ago…" She paused, "I will never forget it. You restored the Veil. You saved our kin - all the Psychics." She hesitated, then proudly lifted her chin. "You slew the Dalmatian Serpent. I can never repay you that debt."
Leudora's gaze went blank. Her heartbeat slowed, and she knew Amaltheia had noticed the subtle change in her posture. She looked away, clasping her hands behind her back to not reveal the nervous tremor of her fingers.
"Strike down your villain, and you create someone's martyr," she said.
"You… you blame yourself for it, don't you?" Amaltheia pointed an accusatory finger at her, but Leudora remained unfazed.
"Guilt cannot revive the dead nor change the outcomes. It only festers."
Amaltheia withdrew quickly as if stung by an angry wasp; Leudora's energy frightened her niece. And fear was dangerous. More dangerous than hatred.
"It's not yet over," Leudora murmured. "It should have been. But it's not. The Veil is failing again. This time, I cannot figure out why."
Amaltheia's reply dissolved in the Veil's thick air, obscured by the rumble of metal and the shouts of careless passengers. Morning mist descended upon the platform. It was a transparent blanket that reached beyond the Veil and turned Leudora into a distant spectator - an outcast in a busy world that did not recognize her. She was excluded. Again. Always. She listened to the faint rustle of voices and the scuffing of footsteps echoed behind her. All seemed misplaced, even history. Most Offcasts did not care about the Natives around them, barely understanding their states and national affiliations, yet Leudora never thought Offcasts were too different from Natives. Perhaps, their perception of time and space was. Nothing more. Not to Leudora.
Local Offcasts had avoided the Great Collapse, unlike their unfortunate kind in the West. Leudora could not ignore the irony of being exiled to the very place where the thickness of the Veil allowed her to savor every breath without going insane. For now. Sometimes she wondered if it was the peculiar composition of the air in the Pannon Basin that turned so many local Offcasts into time-masters. Many were sympathetic to the cause of their fellow Psychics, Leudora's energy-twisting kin. But most only cared about their own survival in the Realm, where Psychics were overwhelmingly despised. Leudora could certainly forgive their ignorance. But she never did. She never forgave ignorance.
She had felt the change in the Veil months ago. The once familiar air seemed thicker, impairing her ability to think critically. She assumed the Veil had started to deteriorate when local time-masters had discovered first purple-blooded corpses in city sewers and parks. The time-masters concealed the evidence, disposed of the bodies and erased all mentions of the troubling crimes from the light-media they could access. They worked diligently to lead the Spy Guild astray, knowing the Council would be quick to accuse the Psychics of unimaginable atrocities. Scared and busy, they did not care if the gossip spread through their own circles, making its way to Leudora. However, where others saw disaster, Leudora saw opportunity. "Neither war nor peace can be permanent." The phrase casually dropped by the Dalmatian Serpent remained etched in her mind forever. Who could this one person undo all that was Leudora with such ease? How could he never pay enough for that?
Leudora scrutinized the octagon pendant she was wearing around her neck through the auburn curtain of her fringe: four lines crossed inside a circle, forming the sign of the Fasma. Her fingers slid over its edges as she walked back to the main entrance, her grey eyes searching for irregular patterns in the Veil's shimmering structure. Like so many other things, those fractures remained beyond the understanding of her people. For now.
Offcasts had been living as interlopers for centuries, relying on what was left of the Ancestors' technological advances. Even their brightest engineers could not grow new gliders and slippers to travel beyond the horizon. All they could do was repair their weapons and light-projectors. Leudora smirked bitterly, skepticism creasing her eyebrow. "If I want progress, I must break the system, kill a ghost and start a revolution. It is a matter of time before the Council catches word of the murders and frames the Psychics. Perhaps I will strike them first."
Welding her way through the crowd, all she could think of was the Creed of the Fasma. The words that had been long forgotten came back to her mind themselves: "Feel the matter that animates organic life and order it. Shift gravity and alter magnetic fields. Bend light and control its flow. See through time. Twist electricity that animates the world. Five people, five enhancements. Knowledge makes enhancements useful. The Fasma keeps all knowledge." She tore the delicate chain away from her neck and tossed it to the ground, a pointlessly dramatic gesture. Leudora was no longer a purple-wearer. The knowledge worshippers of the Fasma shunned her.
She stopped abruptly, a resentful smirk creasing her graceful features. Two boys froze beneath a split-flap departure board, their confusing energy signatures betraying a time-mastering enhancement. Baffled, they glared at Leudora like cornered hounds - lost and scared but unwilling to surrender. Leudora approached them with a cold demeanor one acquires after being hated and revered for decades. Glancing at them briefly, she turned away. They were two gawky kids with little understanding of the world around them. Gullible fools.
"How did she know?" One of the teenagers managed a whisper.
Leudora said nothing. The slight change in her posture provoked a violent response. The shorter boy lifted his hands to cover his face and shouted. "Please! Don't kill us!"
Leudora's eyebrow twitched, nausea rising in her stomach. Time-masters often overextended their enhancement to revise their timelines, influencing other Psychics and leaving them mystified. Their clairvoyance fascinated Leudora despite their lack of precision. The boys' minds were within her grasp. A flash of her energy alone could hurt them, damage them irreparably, and trap them long enough for her to learn their weaknesses and strengths. The boys exchanged confused glances and stared at her, horror marring their pleasant features. Leudora smirked, folding her arms.
"There are worse things in this world than death. Death is a privilege that can be denied."
"You… you can destroy our minds…" The taller boy whispered.
"That too." Her face turned grave when she recognized the expression on his face: it was the same mixture of disgust, fear, and admiration she was used to. Nothing new.
"You are no time-master. You cannot know the outcomes of your actions." The chubby teenager leapt forward, defiance in his dark eyes. His angry tone rankled, but Leudora respected him for his resentment.
"You have done a terrible job at spying on Amaltheia," she said. "You are both very brave and very stupid. Doing my sister's bidding is deadly. Nobody but Lorei survives Lorei's games."
They gaped at her, unable to speak.
"Did Lorei mention I was a lightning-bearer?" she asked, her eyebrow conveying doubt. "I do not fight. I never did. It is unnecessary for someone who carries lightning inside. Another life, they say. A power that slowly drives you mad, slips out of your control. A curse that I will not survive."
"The Basilisk!" The boy's voice trembled. "We will tell you everything… Don't hurt us!" A familiar spark of dread twinkled in his dark-green eyes.
"What can you tell me that I don't know?" she asked. A smirk of disappointment distorted her fine lips. "What can you offer me that I do not have?" It used to hurt once, a lifetime ago. Now she found it almost amusing. "Your services, your lives, your hearts? You've given those to Lorei already. Why would you choose me instead?"
The boys exchanged stupefied glances, biting their tongues.
"Are you afraid of me?" she snarled, leaning forward. They recoiled from her like tiny birds from spreading wildfire. Within a second, the boys were gone.
They bolted away, masterfully navigating the hive of honking cars in the sunlit square. She watched them – silent, pensive, and detached from her world. Whatever damage they inflicted upon the edifices of the city or the vehicles of the Natives, it would take days or even years for those changes to manifest. Their reality leaked through the Veil in a distorted flow of time that swallowed light and colors, producing a matte picture that the Natives accepted as the face of their world.
Warm autumn wind stirred her dark auburn hair as Leudora left the Eastern Railway Station behind. She chose to pass through the thicker parts of the Veil, fully immersing herself in the breaches. Nobody followed her.