No sooner was she out of sight, then Maurice's voice cut through the silence. "Delano."
The butler stepped out of the room's shadow with an unsettling delicacy, as if night had parted to allow him passage.
Faint markings glowed down both sides of his mouth, taut from the corners in delicate, branching lines that crossed his cheeks.
They glowed with a soft, incandescent light, as if molten silver veins ran beneath pale skin.
"I am here, Sir Maurice," Delano said softly, his tone even and just a little cold.
Maurice raised no eyebrows at the sudden appearance of Delano and the weird markings across his body that pulsed with each word from his mouth.
His attention still lay on the stairs Ava had just made her way down.
"She greeted me first today," Maurice said under his breath, nearly as if to himself. "And she drank the tea I made her."
He let out a gentle sigh through his nose, thoughtful. "That would have been unthinkable not long ago. Yet, since yesterday, she had changed."
Delano cocked his head in the direction Maurice was staring off at, his markings glowing softer.
"She is restless," he said. "Her movements are sharp and more deliberate, but they lack focus—like someone trying to find their place in a new world. She seems. agitated, though she hides it well."
Maurice's brow furrowed slightly. "Does she know?"
The butler's lips curved ever so slightly. "No, it's highly unlikely." His tone was sure yet not quite comfortable.
"There is not a single mark on her body, not even a trace of the Unorthodox Houses.
My men have kept close tabs on them for years; I would have noticed her presence among them."
Maurice tapped his fingers against the doorframe, lost in thought as his face weighted with calculation.
"Then. is it possible that she's come across a word?" His voice dropped to a low murmur. "Perhaps accidentally?"
Delano wavered, and the light about his lips dimmed further as he did so—an unconscious indicator of his uncertainty. "It is possible."
Maurice's eyes slitted. "Possible, huh," he murmured to himself. He turned from the door, abstracted.
"If she has started to understand even a fragment of a "Word"." His sentence faded into nothing, yet the inference hung heavy in the air.
Delano said nothing, waiting for the expected order.
Maurice's eyes cut to the butler, keen and icy. "Follow her." The words were laced with finality, as if they had been written in stone.
"If she actually is starting to learn the Words." He paused, his eyes drifting for a moment, as he weighed possibilities in his head. ".deal with her accordingly."
The butler inclined his head slightly, his expression inscrutable. "And if she isn't?"
Maurice exhaled through his nose—a soft, thoughtful sound.
He turned back toward the room beyond the door, shadows pooling at the edges of his desk.
"If she's not a threat, throw her to the barbarians in the world below."
A faint, humourless smile curled the edges of Delano's mouth. "The fallen in the world below do enjoy their. distractions."
Maurice's voice was as cold as a winter wind. "I am sure that she would be able to keep them busy long enough." He clasped his hands behind him, then turned toward the window to look out into the sky above—at the flickering light of the second echelon, the planet just above Irioris.
"The crystal from the second echelon will be prepared shortly," Maurice whispered to himself more than Delano. "When it's decrypted, it won't matter what becomes of her."
The butler bowed slightly, the glow along his cheeks pulsating softly. "As you command."
Maurice said nothing. He stood there a beat longer, lost in his little world, before stepping back inside his office.
The door shut with a click behind him, the room seeming to swallow him in like water, so nothing was left but ripples of shadow in its aftermath.
Below, the figure of Ava vanished into the mist-shrouded streets, unconscious that silent pursuit had just started. Yet something quivered inside her, some unnameable disquiet—as if the air had sifted and the world tilted, all at once, off its axis.
And far above them, beyond the veil of clouds, pulsed the light of the Second Echelon—still, foreboding, in waiting.
***
Ava drifted aimlessly, her steps restless yet guided by an unseen force, barely aware of where her feet carried her.
Her shoulders were tensed, her mind awhirl with thoughts she couldn't quite catch, though they gnawed at her just the same.
Presently, she found herself in one of the many lively street malls, wide lanes lined with vendors and their wares.
This area of the city was hardly ever her go-to place; it was too crowded. But she knew it well enough. She has stolen dozens of things here: gadgets, money, clothes.
Now, she wandered the paths of it with this strange misplacedness, as if she were a stranger to herself.
The smell of fried food pulled her in, anchoring her senses into some semblance of the present.
Her eyes fell on a small, garishly colored shop whose window display was almost overwhelmingly filled with sweets.
She had heard many people mention it, even on her missions. She felt herself drifting towards it almost against her own will and found herself facing the shopkeeper himself—a warm, round man whose eyes sparkled as he went on and on about their different sweets.
Ava ordered dessert from Erevara-a region once ruled by Valondria-called "Cottage Cheese Dumplings." She took a small bite, and her eyes enlarged in a surprised blink. The flavor was complex and warm: creamy sweetness paired with slightly spiced syrup that was soft on the inside and softly chewy on the outside. Her lips almost curled-a sensation she was foreign to.
The loud shouting snapped her out of the reverie. She turned to see an old man, in tattered clothes, shouting from the middle of the street.
His wiry form shimmied as he motioned wildly, his voice rising above the murmur of the crowd.
"Beware!" he bellowed, his eyes wide with conviction. "The Words have brought corruption! Profane beasts walk amongst us; spawns of hell are brining it's horrors " A few passersby shook their heads and moved on, others glanced his way with mild amusement.
He pressed on, insistent, his voice rising. "They defy the laws of the Unseen One! They disrupt the Order with their Chaos and twist Creation into vile perversions. These words were left for the worthy, not for those who abandon God's command!"
Ava found herself listening, almost mesmerized by the cadence of his rant.
The words from the old man struck her as fragments of lore, overheard countless times-the "Six Words of Creation" fundamental forces, which had been said in ancient teachings to underpin the very fabric of existence. The Words included within them some of the most basic essentials of life:
The Beginning as the first spark to life, Order as the structure which held everything together in poise, Chaos as the unplanned strength which made change possible, Desire as the very need at the heart of every living being which kept them moving, Sacrifice as the price to pay come what may, and the End as the ultimate end where everything went back to what was not seen.
She knew only this much-bits and pieces she'd picked up from temple sermons she'd half-listened to as a child.
They'd always felt like distant ideas, that didn't really matter in the everyday life. But something in the zealot's voice made them feel heavier, as though these words held life.
Ava shook her head, all but in despair. The words of the zealot, reeking with holy dread, sounded to her more like threats than enlightenment.
The concept that some unperceived god ordained life was, to her, a hollow one-in Silence when his world was rife with pain and bloodshed.
Yet, unwanted, there rose the memory of one priest who had once sheltered her during her mission, his patient preaching, his faith a quiet, steady force never demanding yet inspiring.
The old man's shouting receded as she took another bite of the dumpling. Flavor settled in her mouth, soft and rich, comforting in a way that felt curiously new on her tongue. But her tranquility was short-lived; an uneasy presence crept into her consciousness.
She turned her head, feeling the prickle of eyes upon her. A figure—a dark shape barely visible in the evening fog.