The panicked cry scraped against Sebastian's skull like metal on porcelain.

"Why is he bleeding?"

Abel's hysterical voice brought Sebastian back to Lambert's office; it had been her screams he had heard in Pavel's memory. Everything he had seen and heard ran through his thoughts like a nest of hornets, each sting another memory. His stomach twisted. He found he laid sprawled across Lambert's thick, musky carpets. Abel continued to demand loud questions of Matthias who stood above him. For a split second, anger swamped him over the interruption Abel had provided. If only he could have stayed in his father's Monverta, could have seen what became of Aurelea, perhaps he could have learned how he had come to be without her.

Without both of them.

Lambert's voice broke into consciousness next, presumably answering Abel's worried demands about blood. "It can be taxing on a body to witness another's memories, I would imagine—"

"Yet you didn't warn us?"

"The boy was brash; there was hardly time for any of that."

Sebastian's head swam, nauseated, but he forced his eyes open.

Someone knelt behind his head, propping him up by the shoulders. "What did you see?"

It was Astrid; her blue eyes peered down at him, a frown—though it resembled a nervous grimace the more Sebastian's vision focused—tugging at her colorless lips.

Her fingers scrawled letters into the back of his neck: Okay?

They sent his hair on end; it was a rather ridiculous question.

Sebastian struggled to sit. His chest ached beneath the rapid pounding of his pulse. A trail of something wet slipped over his chin and onto the sweat-damp tunic of his chest. It was a shock to learn it wasn't only blood that dripped down his face but residual, trailing tears, as well.

He swiped at it with the sleeve of his cloak. It was hot. Much too hot. "Aurelea." The name gasped from his lips. "What happened to her?"

A charged silence met his question. Sebastian imagined they all exchanged worried glances to wordlessly wonder if he had finally lost his mind. However, in the next breath, everything became a dizzying collage of movement and noise. Abel dropped to his side and touched his face, cooing over him while examining him for wounds. Astrid shifted from behind him, taking away her support. Her impatient breath huffed against the top of his head as she stood over him instead, arms crossed. Matthias was the only one who remained a statue at his position when Lambert half-leaned across his desk despite the captain's sword.

"Aurelea?" Lambert's expression quirked inquisitively. "The Elementi priestess? You saw her in Pavel's memory?"

Oh, no. Too late, Sebastian realized it might have been wiser to keep that bit of information to himself. After all, Pavel had even explained the plan had been to never share any knowledge or secrets about Aurelea. About them. Hadn't Aurelea worried the Eyelesene Spirits would find out about her involvement and cast a curse upon her?

Astrid had told him once the Spirits would even kill for certain discretions. Possess.

He forced his expression to straighten. Matthias watched, head quirked the barest centimeter to the right as if something Sebastian had said had faintly interested him. "It is true, then." Matthias's tone was low, careful. "Aurelea's child survived."

"No, I—" Sebastian choked on his next breath. "Pavel mentioned her in the memory. That's all."

Lambert watched him. "A motherless womb." The words from the prophecy grated against Sebastian's already frayed nerves. "It is you. Priestesses vow to never have relations with men."

Sebastian shook his head, anxious his attempts were all futile, but it was Astrid who demanded, "Say nothing more, Sebastian. Lambert wants the quill. He can't be trusted."

Abel's eyes flashed. "And you don't? Weren't you holding a knife to Bash's throat just moments ago?"

"Aurelea is dead, boy," Lambert snapped. "Died on the shores of Port Gaelin on Holalethe Lake as she fled Soleita during the Purge."

Sebastian's soul dropped to his toes. "Dead?" He cleared his throat. "But what of the quill—?"

Astrid moved, a mere flash of silvery hair and dark cloak as she shot across the room. One second, she stood at his side, glaring at him in a way that told Sebastian she wanted him to keep his mouth shut; the next, she had ripped Matthias's sword from his grasp and slammed its hilt into the side of Lambert's head.

Abel shrieked out a protest. "Stop! What are you doing?" 

But the Master Librarian had already slumped sideways. His torso sagged heavily over the arm of his chair, head lolling unconsciously a handbreadth from his horrible rug. Astrid flipped the sword back into Matthias's hand and then turned to face a stunned Sebastian, hands on her hips as if she had not just bashed an old librarian upside the head.

"You learned where the quill is."

Shocked, Sebastian nodded. Astrid tapped her foot, frustrated hands planted firmly on her hips, when he didn't admit to anything else right away. Observing him, she hummed in thought and then rounded the desk, kneeling next to Abel. She knocked Abel's arms aside and placed a hand on Sebastian's bouncing knee. An empathetic look flickered across her face, a mixture of hope, persistence, and something bitter pressing her lips together. 

Because Astrid had always believed in his strength, had never treated him as someone who needed to be protected; it was clear she wasn't about to start now.

Sebastian grasped onto that, wanting to believe her. Needing to.

There was nothing else he had.

"Listen," Astrid implored, "these tasks—" she closed her eyes momentarily, eyelashes like ghosts across her cheekbones—"my mother designed them in preparation for the retrieval of the Black Quill."

"What?" Sebastian braced his weight on his hands. "What do you mean?"

"How do you know this?" Abel demanded before sucking down a gasp in the same breath. "You were a part of it." 

Astrid turned from him to meet Abel's accusation. "It's all my mother has ever wanted: The Black Quill. She needs it to save my father from his Monverta. To retrieve his soul from it, another would have to take his place, but with the Black Quill, that soul-transfer becomes moot; Lambert explained it earlier. He spoke the truth." Astrid glanced between them, eyes shining with all the words she hadn't yet said. "Davina believes she knows where it is: Holalethe Lake on the border of Galandreal and Belsynen."

Sebastian pursed his lips. Their eyes met and clashed. "Please." It was a much softer tone, one Sebastian had never heard from her before. One that raised his inner alarms. "I just want to free my father."

Though the distrust alarms rang, looking at her, Sebastian felt that irrefutable connection. That twisting thread, which had always strung taut between them. Uniting them. Drawing them together. Igniting their respected elemental connections. He reached for her hand like Pavel had taken hold of Aurelea's and traced three letters onto her skin—yes—before admitting out loud, "It's there, I think. It was Pavel's idea to put it there."

Light shone from Astrid's stretching excitement. "But the lake is...dangerous?"

"Stop." Abel held up a hand. "First, explain what you mean about the tasks."

Astrid's eyes dimmed at the request. "Husky." She uttered it like a curse. Her nostrils flared in irritation. "The second task had us work with fire and dragons, common occurrences in the realm of Demue, which borders the western side of Holalethe Lake. The first had us retrieve a prize from a pond under dire circumstances since Holalethe is rumored to be cursed water."

"Not cursed," Sebastian corrected. "I think its destructive properties are due to some mineral called arulonite that smothers elemental connections."

When Astrid's hand wrapped around her left upper arm, Sebastian connected the dots. "Your cuff," he said, "it's made from arulonite?"

A storm brewed behind her eyes. She nodded with a curt twitch of her neck. "It was mined from Holalethe, but—" her hand fisted over it—"Wait. It was in Infinite Pond, as well. It nearly drowned me. I felt it leech onto me, drain me, but Authors shouldn't—the arulonite couldn't—"

Sebastian filled in the rest for her. "Authors are the only ones with elemental connections able to withstand the effects of the arulonite in the lake."

"But it affected me, and she knew."

The dark pupils of her eyes flicked back and forth, her hidden thoughts flashing across her face so severely they seemed to crack her expression into shattered, angry pieces. Without a word, she wrenched her cloak from her shoulders, shoved the sleeves of her tunic up and over her elbows, and then thrust her arm out to Sebastian.

"Touch it," she growled.

Before he could do it on his own, she grabbed his wrist and slammed his palm over her copper cuff.

For all Astrid's dramatics, nothing happened. Nothing that Sebastian could tell, anyways. He knew what Astrid felt when her cuff reacted to the elements, how it drained the color from her already pale skin and caused her breathing to strain. Sebastian took a steady breath and pulled on Astrid's Spirit's thread, which was so loud and frantic it was easy to find.

Still, nothing happened.

"She knew." Astrid swore and shook off Sebastian's touch. It was difficult to guess what or who she was resentful towards. "It could have killed me. And you—" she spun to face a stoic Matthias—"You used it on Abel in the tunnels to smother her. How did you know it would stop her?"

Matthias's brown eyes narrowed. "The effects of arulonite are well known outside Rainier. It does not react well with the elements."

"Unless you're an Author," Abel interjected, watching Astrid with a keen expression. "Didn't you say your blood was cursed by the Spirits because of your father?"

Pavel's words from the memory came to the forefront of Sebastian's mind: Serah will be crossing the borders of the Eyelesene Glaciers in two nightfalls to give word to the Spirits of Niklaus's betrayal of the elements.

By the Scribes! His father's plan had worked, and it had caused Astrid's father, supposedly his entire bloodline, to be cursed.

His father had cursed Astrid.

Astrid's hands fisted in her lap, but she forced herself to breathe harsh breaths in and out through her lungs, a sound like a hissing teapot coming from between her teeth. The edges of her vibrated. Thick, sharp tension shadowed her. Sebastian wanted to grab her, to help her still the rocketing emotions rushing through her. At the same time, however, he had the terrible sense that doing so would somehow shame Pavel's and Aurelea's sacrifices.

He sat on his hands.

Astrid leapt to her feet and paced in circles. Her cheeks flushed with a frenzied fever. "My mother—" she swallowed—"Davina, she has always claimed we couldn't be certain my father's curse would be mine, but she knew. She must have. The moment she put this blasted cuff on me as a toddler! And she for damn sure placed the arulonite in Infinite Pond to see if you could withstand it, and she did not tell me!"

The torch against the far wall spluttered out. 

Matthias stepped around Lambert's desk. "Astrid, calm down—"

"No!" The air in the room squeezed and pressed. One of the logs in the crackling fireplace popped. Sebastian felt his own lungs constrict in response to her pain. "She has always known I am not what she needs. What my father needs. She only needed me to find you."

Her hair fell wildly about her pinched face when she turned to pierce her burning gaze on Sebastian. He pushed himself to his feet. It didn't feel like a safe option to remain lying beneath her rising rampage. Abel bound to his side and pressed the green malachite stone between their hands as if it would somehow protect him. 

The stone pulsed like a third heartbeat.

"Listen," Matthias tried again, sheathing his sword to placate her. "Astrid. The drums."

At once, as if those had been the magical words she had waited for, Astrid paused. Her muscles seized into locked ligaments and sinews, every one of her nerves at attention. The only part of her that moved was her chest. Sharply up. Shooting down. It heaved against the confinements of her tunic as she tilted her head towards the office door.

Listened.

They all fell silent in her wake.

Sure enough, outside the pounding of his own breaths, Astrid's threads punching against his gut, and the beat of the malachite rock, Sebastian heard the rhythmic messaging of the Iced Guard's drums.

Da-dum-da-da-dum.

Matthias translated. "The third task." His jaw ticked, stern gaze darting from Astrid to Sebastian.

Astrid straightened. Her fingers tapped the drums' beats against her outer thigh. She swore under her breath before spinning back to Sebastian with a fierce, determined expression. The angry flush to her face retreated and was eerily replaced with the hardening mask of her guard persona.

"You're not going to like this bit, Husky."

Abel clutched the stone tighter, her fingernails digging into Sebastian's palms.

"The third task is happening." His brain spun as Astrid pulled the hem of her tunic out of the waistband of her trousers. "Now? After all of this?"

Strapped around her muscular waist was a brown leather belt. Astrid yanked two vials from either side of her hips and approached Sebastian in three strides. One of the vials she held out to him. Her eyes glinted like frozen bits of cutting ice.

"You need to drink this."

"Like Hel he will!" Abel swatted at the vial. "This is insane, idiotic, reckless—!"

Astrid met her with calloused sympathy. "He must. The final task begins." She turned her neck over her shoulder to Matthias. "You were tasked with escorting me to the portal, am I correct, Captain Soiree?"

Sebastian was sure he heard Matthias jaw crack when he inclined his head in short submission. "That's good, then," Astrid said with a calm that made Sebastian feel completely insane, bumbling, and like an utterly numb pansy. "You can take both of us, I imagine."

She unstoppered one of the vials, wafting it underneath Abel's nose. "Only a Valerian Draught," she explained and held up the identical vial of pale rose liquid, "for both of us. To make it fair. It will put us both to sleep. Far easier to travel through portals while unconscious. Less motion sickness."

Too bad the Valerian would most likely do nothing for the swirling of thoughts in his head. Sebastian glanced between the vials, feeling his brows pinch together like manacles for his brain. "Was that why you came to my room earlier? To drug me?"

"Of course not," she clipped. "It was to drug both of us." She offered him a grim smile. "Trust me, Bash. This is almost over."

Abel scoffed. "You claim to know of the tasks' true purpose," she said, "so what is this one?"

Astrid kept her eyes trained on Sebastian. "You are going to help me get the Black Quill out of that lake, Seabass."

"We're going to Holalethe?"

"Lucky you saw that memory, huh?"

Sebastian's stomach plummeted straight to his feet and through the floor, but his foolish hand reached for the vial and pulled it from Astrid's grasp. He was sure if he looked in a mirror, he would hardly recognize who stared back at him after tonight. Tucked under his opposite arm, somehow, was the Monverta.

"We need to take Pavel."

"It is banned," Matthias informed him. "Nothing through the portal but the clothes on your back. Besides, a magical artifact such as that one could cause the portal to malfunction."

Astrid nodded with a dramatic air that Sebastian began to realize was a coping mechanism. It would only last so long until it broke. "It would be terrible to get stuck in a void," she pronounced. "Or dropped off in the middle of the Ember sea on top of a Mer-shark."

Sebastian held the book tighter until Abel touched his arm. "Give it to me, Bash," she said. "I'll take it with me outside Rainier tonight. I still have Norham's maps." She turned to Astrid. "Where is the portal dropping you?"

"Just below the Serac Mountain range." It sounded so instantaneous like Astrid had planned for this all along. "Near the top of Amb River on the border of Belsynen and Galandreal. Matthias will give you one of our fastest horses."

The two women watched each other for a short moment while the drums continued their incessant blows. They were so methodical that Sebastian felt them rattle his brain. Abel tugged at the Monverta, and Sebastian relented, the comforting warmth of it giving way to the chilled air of Lambert's office. In a motion that felt eerily similar to Pavel and Aurelea's final goodbye, Abel clasped Pavel's book to her chest and looked up at Sebastian.

"Trust your instincts, Bash."

He nodded. "I'll see you soon?"

She grinned slyly. "Only if Halorian horses are as fast as Astrid claims."

The joke presented him with a glitch of normalcy. Sebastian heard himself choke on a laugh before he pulled Abel by the elbows and brushed his lips against her cheek.

"Thank you," he murmured against her newly pointed ear.

Without looking back, he returned to Astrid, raising the vial to his lips. The floral scent itched his nose, and he paused on a new thought. "A portal needs two anchors," he said, "Assuming one of us acts as the anchor on this side, who is on the other?"

Astrid clanked her flask against his own. "Serah was sent out with a guard two days ago." She flicked off the stopper. "Hopefully, she made it."

There were far too many parallels between Pavel's memory and this reality; it sent a slithering dread down Sebastian's spine. Perhaps he would forever be this paranoid now, stuck between his past and present, weary of each of his next steps. It was with this somber perception that Sebastian followed Astrid's suit, tipping the vial against his mouth.

"Don't let him die," Abel warned.

Astrid only provided a curt nod. "His life is his own. It is his to do with as he chooses."

It was the last sentiment made before the sweet, earthy tang of the draught oozed across Sebastian's tongue. The liquid moved like a dream, lazy down his throat and into his brain, thick and heavy as a heated blanket. Emptied, the flask slipped from his numb fingers; he heard it smash into the floor before darkness swept in on a wave of ink and into a page of his and Astrid's making.

And for that, he would need the quill.

Thus began the reforging of magic across the realms' tomb. 

- - -

Ah! Only the epilogue is left!!! WE CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!