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When the jet landed on the airstrip, Jake reluctantly picked up the wrapped, severed arm while Zoe thanked the pilot and stewardess. Then, the girl led the way outside, and Elijah followed. He glanced around at the fences blocking the area off from the forest of cypress and oak trees, and there was a dirt road that looked to be the only clear path to get to the city, which he could see over the trees.

"Why do I have to carry this?" Jake complained, grimacing as he held the arm as far away from himself as he could.

"Well, I don't want to," Zoe exclaimed irritably.

Jake grunted in response.

Zoe then looked up at Elijah. "I think that...it's probably best if you don't go into The Darkness again until we know who this Maverick person is," she warned him.

"I don't plan on going back there anyway," the demon muttered. "Let's go."

With a nod, Zoe started leading the way towards the dirt road. "This place is a lot louder than Dawnward," she said, glancing back at Elijah. "There's a lot of music and people partying and dancing in the streets."

"That's why people call it the city that never sleeps. Literally 24/7 party, man," Jake said enviously.

"I find it a little weird that it's so loud, though; there's a Caeleste Consulate not too far out the city, which means there's a big Nosferatu presence here, and—"

Elijah stopped walking and scowled down at her. "Why didn't you mention that before?"

She halted, too, and turned to face him. "I...didn't think it would matter. It's just the Străjer. They're kind of like police, and they make sure that the humans and Caeleste are getting along and stop any fights from breaking out...that sort of thing. They're not gonna recognize you or anything; it's a completely different division."

He wasn't sure whether he believed her. He still didn't trust the Nosferatu, and he didn't want them involved, least of all seeing and recognizing him.

"She's right, dude," Jake chimed in. "The Străjer are literally like the lowest of the lowest on the Nosferatu henchmen list. They probably don't even know that the people they're working for are looking for Lyca Corp."

Zoe rolled her eyes but said, "They honestly probably don't."

He still didn't feel entirely convinced, but he was wasting time standing there, so he sighed quietly and mumbled, "Whatever. Keep moving."

Zoe continued along the dirt road beside Jake, and Elijah followed. There wasn't much to see other than trees and the occasional fox or deer. It smelled like cypress and pine, and the distant scent of pollution mixed with that of several different cooking foods filled his nostrils—it wasn't very pleasant.

The traffic grew louder as they approached the tree line, and the commotion of people echoed loudly. Through the thinning trees, Elijah saw towering glass buildings and flashing billboards. He did his best to prepare himself for the crowds and trailed behind Zoe and Jake as they stepped out of the forest and emerged onto a sidewalk.

"So, we have to head to the city centre," Zoe said, leading the way across the road and into the city. "There's an alley like...in between a curiosity store and I think a café."

"You think?" Elijah questioned.

"I haven't seen a video about it in a while," she mumbled.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Jake said as he tossed the wrapped arm into a trash bin. "Don't you have photographic memory? If your dads do, then you surely do, too."

"I can't be expected to remember every tiny detail about every single thing!" she exclaimed irritably.

"Don't fucking start," Elijah complained before Jake could reply.

"I'm just saying," the pardus grumbled.

Zoe scowled angrily but didn't say anything else. She silently led the way deeper into the city, navigating her way through the busy crowds as Jake and Elijah stuck close. The gatherings of suited men and women soon turned into groups of hollering teens and drunk adults; the music that Zoe mentioned cut through the flurry of voices, and street performers were on every corner, singing or dancing or both.

Elijah cautiously glanced around. When he spotted a uniformed man with the Nosferatu's sigil on his sleeve, he tensed up a little; the guy also looked like a police officer, though, so he must be one of the Străjer that Zoe mentioned.

"We're almost there," the girl said, looking over her shoulder at him.

"What do we do once we find this entrance?" Elijah asked.

"I don't...really know," Zoe answered.

"Some people said there's a password or something," Jake said.

"No, they don't," she muttered. "Not in any of the videos I saw, anyway."

The demon sighed irritably. "So? What do the videos you've seen say?"

"That it's a secret entrance, and only certain people can find it."

"But you know how to find it, yes?"

"Like I said, I'll know it when I see it," she said confidently.

He had no choice but to believe her.

As she continued leading the way, Elijah followed beside Jake, and when they reached the city centre, Zoe took them to a large market square. A huge golden clock tower towered above the rest of the surrounding buildings, and the place was packed with shoppers, performers, and Străjer officers.

Zoe stopped beside the huge fountain in the middle of the square and looked around slowly.

Elijah looked around, too, shifting his sights from each bar, café, and trinket store. He spotted two curiosity stores, one on either side of the square, but just as he was about to tell her, Zoe set her eyes on the one that appeared a lot older.

"There," the girl said, pointing at it.

"Are you sure?" Jake questioned. "You said it was beside a café, but there's just bars over there."

"I said that maybe it was a café, but that's the place," she said, already leading the way over there.

Elijah followed, and so did Jake.

Just as Zoe said, there was an alley between the curiosity store and a bar. It was blocked off by a gate, but Elijah yanked on and broke the steel chain with ease. He pushed the gate open, and once Zoe and Jake headed inside, he closed it behind them and watched as they started looking around.

"It's like a cat face," Jake said, examining a wall.

"Right," Zoe muttered, searching the ground.

Elijah started scouring the small alley for the symbol, too. He eyed every brick, used his sleeve to wipe away the cobwebs and dust, and kicked up some fallen planks of wood, but there was no sign of the symbol that Jake had described.

"I don't see anything," Jake muttered. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

Zoe sighed frustratedly. "Yes, I'm sure. It's gotta be around here somewhere."

Elijah shifted his attention to the wooden fence at the back of the alley. He spotted a small padlock, which meant there had to be something on the other side. So, he moved past Zoe and shoved Jake out of the way, and then he gripped the padlock and pulled it from the fence. A few planks came loose, and when Elijah pushed them, they fell to the ground, the split string no longer strong enough to keep them in place.

"Oh..." Jake drawled.

The demon stepped through and emerged into a small courtyard. The backs of the stores and bars were fenced off, and even the windows above the fence were boarded up. There wasn't anything in the area apart from an old, mossy fountain; the cobblestone ground looked old—it wasn't like the smooth pavement in the rest of the city.

"I didn't even see that there," Zoe said as she followed him through.

Jake stepped through, too. "So...old, empty, creepy courtyard. Cool."

Elijah looked around for the cat symbol, but there was nothing on the fences or stones but moss and rot. He even checked the fountain, but there was nothing inside other than a dead bird and a few spiders.

"I don't see anything," Jake complained.

The demon sighed deeply, but just as he was about to suggest they started wiping the rot and mould from the fence, he set his sights on Zoe, who was slowly walking towards the left fence with a pondering expression on her face.

"Hey, guys. What about this?" she asked.

"What?" Elijah asked, following her.

"That," she said, stopping ten feet from the fence. She pointed at it...but there was nothing there.

"What? I don't see anything," Jake said, standing beside Elijah.

"Stop being an idiot," she muttered.

Elijah couldn't see whatever she was looking at. There was nothing on the fence. No mark, no cat, nothing. "There's nothing there."

She frowned and looked up at him. Then, she set her eyes back on the fence. "You don't...see it?"

The demon looked down at her, and when she glanced up at him again with a confused frown, he noticed something different about her eyes. They were a lighter shade of green, they were glowing, and the rim around her irises was gold.

"Yo, what's up with your eyes?" Jake questioned.

"What do you mean?"

"They're like...glowing...and kinda gold."

She frowned confusedly. "Wait, what?" She pulled her phone out and looked at her reflection in it.

"What are you seeing?" Elijah asked impatiently. "The symbol?"

Zoe lifted her phone and took a picture of her face, and as she sent it to her father asking what was going on with her eyes, she said, "It's right there on the door."

"What door?" Elijah questioned, staring at the fence in front of them up and down. "There's nothing there."

Her phone pinged, and she opened the voice note.

"When did your eyes do that?" her father asked tiredly, sounding as if he'd just been woken up. "What were you doing? Where are you?"

"Uh-oh," Jake drawled amusedly. "Sounds like you woke him up."

Zoe frowned guiltily and replied, "I'm sorry if I woke you up, Papa. I was just...walking down the street with my friends and saw something, and my eyes did that." Once she sent it, she looked at Elijah. "The cat symbol. It's in the door of this shop," she insisted, pointing at the fence again.

Elijah frowned, starting to feel aggravated. There was no shop in front of them, nor was there any symbol.

"Zoe, there's nothing here," Jake said.

Her phone pinged again, and she played her father's response.

"It's okay, don't worry. What you saw was what is hidden under an illusion; that's the colour my eyes go when I see them, too."

Elijah frowned harder. An illusion? And Zoe could see through it?

"An illusion?" Jake asked, shocked.

Instead of replying, Zoe stared at her phone with a look of both relief and content on her face.

Jake moved past Elijah and stood in front of Zoe. "What?" he asked her and nudged her shoulder.

She snapped out of it and shook her head. "N-nothing, I just...never thought I'd be like them...like my family. But...I am."

"So...you're saying that there's an illusion...right here?" Jake asked stepping side and gesturing to the fence. "This fence?"

Zoe nodded. "It has to be if you can't see what I'm seeing, and my Papa just said so, too."

Jake leaned forward and dragged his hand over the fence. "I don't feel anything but fence...and splinters," he muttered and started chewing his fingers.

"The cat symbol is behind the illusion?" Elijah asked her.

She nodded. "Right there in the door beside those posters."

"Can you open the door?"

Zoe looked unsure but reached out and gripped something that Elijah couldn't see. Then, she pulled...and five of the fence panels disappeared, revealing a mirror-lined passage that smelled of musk and damp soil.

Elijah was pretty sure he knew where it would take them. All those mirrors meant that whatever lay at the end of the tunnel required the protection of a distortion field.

"It looks just like that tunnel we took to that underground city," Jake said, peering inside.

"You can see inside, too?" Zoe asked.

"Yeah," the pardus confirmed. "So...do we go in?"

Elijah wasn't going to waste a moment. He was certain that what he was looking at was the entrance to another underground city; it made sense that it was hidden and that only certain people would be able to find it. Places like this could be very private, and evidently, this passage was going to lead them to a place where only a select few were expected to be. To his relief, though, Zoe was one of those people, so he wasn't going to have to sneak around too much or fight his way through.

He stepped inside and said, "Come on," and started leading the way.

Zoe and Jake followed behind him.

He wasn't entirely sure what he'd face down there, but he didn't imagine it being much different from the other underground cities he'd been to. He just hoped that Jake was right and that once they got down there, he'd be able to find someone to fly him to The Spear.

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