The wagon jostled heavily through the undergrowth, my shoulder bumping into Grey's as we rattled along in silence. The old ladies hid beneath the dingy tarp as the rain poured. The thunder had finally gotten fainter and more distant and lightning was no longer an issue.

I glanced over to the boy with the eye on his throat. The mark was covered again. He'd wrapped the sopping scarf around his head and neck like a turban, worn by devout sulas of Cond from my own heritage. Considering my coloring, Alastair told me that my family must have come over from the eastern land, which unfortunately meant I probably came from the same place as Forsythia, the dramatic soothsayer. But Grey was too pale and wet. He shivered and curled forward.

"A storm summoner can't handle a little rain? How pathetic," I grumbled. "A great and powerful servant of Chaos caught easily by mortal men. You're pathetic."

Grey quirked his head to the side and leered at me, somehow managing to master both the expression of evil and the appearance of a waterlogged rat.

"What's the matter with you?" I pulled back from him a little. "Aren't you offended? I've been nothing but cruel to you since we met, but you don't get angry. Do you know what anger is? It's the emotion you feel when someone keeps calling you rude names, idiot."

Grey laughed and coughed. His normally fluffy hair laid flat on his forehead, making water roll into his eyes. He rubbed at them. "Well, I prefer your names. At least it's better than being called a monster."

I turned my focus to the surrounding landscape that was gray and flooded over with rain.

Monster.

How many times had I heard that word directed at me? It was what I was, so I didn't deserve to shrink inside whenever I heard it.

I glanced behind us to the lumps under the coverlet that were the old bats doing their best to stay dry and warm. Hannah had referred to Grey as a monster. She'd said that they would never harbor a monster. That had twisted my guts as it did again at the memory of it.

"But you haven't been cruel to me. Not at all, even."

I straightened up and swiveled back to him. "Do you know the definition of cruel?"

"It's to willfully cause harm or suffering with no regret afterward. You haven't done this to me."

"I kicked you in the stomach and attacked you within the first few moments we met!" I exclaimed.

Grey nodded, his lips pursed. "That's half true. You did kick me, but you only attempted to attack me."

I snarled.

"But didn't you regret it afterward?" He asked.

I opened my mouth to spit that I never regretted hurting people. The definition of the word fit me perfectly, but the sting from the nettled amica trees randomly flared up from my palms. I rubbed them and muttered under my breath, "I don't regret stealing your shoes."

Grey gave a little hum. "Neither do I, actually."

My shoulders stiffened.

"You saved my life," Grey pointed out. "That's not cruelty usually."

"Well, you don't know why I saved your life. Maybe I have cruel intentions." I crossed my arms.

He chewed his tongue with his lips quirked up as if he might be holding back a laugh. "Alright then, why did you really save me?"

My fingers shook on the sodden sleeves of the second ruined shirt. "I don't have to tell you. It's my own business."

Grey snorted and rolled his eyes. "Is your desire to be genuinely frustrating?"

I sniffed, lifting my head up a bit more. "You're finally starting to see who I really am. My desires are tempestuous and malicious. My personality is harsh and bitter. I am an actual monster that no one should have to deal with. The quicker you understand that, the easier this will be for you."

"Then I suppose this is going to be very difficult for me for a long time."

My mouth clamped shut and I looked ahead again.

The heavy shower eased up into a light sprinkle as we traveled further. Grey nodded off, but awoke when Alastair pulled the reins to slow the horses a little. The old man hadn't said a word the entire time Grey and I had yammered away right beside him. He had to be aware that I'd known about the fugitive.

"I have to pee!" Sera's gussy voice emanated up from under the blanket.

Alastair halted the animals, and the two old women shimmied out from their sad shelter.

"I'll go with her," Hannah's wavering voice piped up, but I saw the way she was swaying and knew what she did not want to admit.

"Will you be alright?" Alastair asked, sliding down from the bench.

"Of course," Sera insisted.

"Don't go far."

"Girls need their privacy," Sera looked at him scornfully. "You can't expect us to empty ourselves right here with you."

Hannah rocked back and forth as her hand squeezed Sera's shoulder, urgently.

"Right," Sera got her message. "We'll be back." She gave a fast glance to Grey before whirling and heading off, while Hannah kept her gaze deliberately averted.

I groaned. Who knew how long we were going to be out in the cold, now that the very old ladies had to deal with their business?

"Grey, was it not?" Alastair spoke, making me jump.

Grey looked a little startled at the old man saying his name. "Yes, Sir." He pushed the makeshift hood off of his dripping hair.

"Will you please go gather some wood for the fire we'll need for tonight. Most everything will be pretty wet, but maybe if we get some away from the mud and water and onto the wagon for them to dry off it will work out."

Grey pulled back in hesitation. "I should really go—"

"It would be very helpful to us. Sera and Hannah are busy, and I have to check Salem's foot."

Grey's mouth shut, and he nodded before leaping down lightly and hurrying off.

"Come back here, Salem." Alastair gestured for me to go to the back of the wagon. I complied easily, since my ankle really was a mess. I braced myself along the side until I could sit back down, with my legs hanging over the side.

Alastair knelt down and removed my boot. "You have a lot of explaining to do," he murmured, his attention firmly fixed on my injury. "When did you meet this boy?"

"Yesterday," I answered. "He was sleeping under one of the amica trees. He's the loonies' ghost."

Alastair's eyebrows rose. "Ah, I see. That makes sense now." He hopped onto the wagon and went back to the chest. Opening it up, he revealed books like I'd thought, as well as several tied sacks. He took one out and removed a poultice and some bandages. Then he returned and dabbed it at the swollen foot. His gaze lifted to meet my face. "They say that Chaos children are demons, chaotic savages with wild minds, thirsting for bedlam, originating from their creator."

"That's what Goat says." I shook my head.

"But you don't believe him?"

"You don't," I said. "If you did, you wouldn't have let Grey come with us."

Alastair sighed. "I do see things very different from the rest of the world, but I have to keep that hidden or be ruined." He clenched the poultice that, along with being soaked in a vinegary substance, had another alchemist sigil on it.

His grip loosened and his eyes widened slowly, staring into mine, his mouth shaped into a small o. I pulled back at the strange open expression, for I could see the picks in his eyes, digging at something from me I didn't know. "What?" I snapped.

"In all the time that you've lived with me I've never seen you do what you did today. I've never seen you act... like that." He leaned in, making my stomach squirm. "Why? Why did you really do it?"

"What?" I growled again. "What did I do?"

"When he said it earlier, I still had a hard time believing it. If I hadn't witnessed you risking your life to save another's, myself, I would have called him mad," Alastair said bluntly.

I deadpanned. My wriggling insides settled down almost too much. They moved sluggishly until they froze all together. "If you heard all that you must have put together that my intentions were not good ones. You know me better than anyone, so you had to have already assumed as much."

Alastair waited patiently. I could tell him I didn't have to tell him either, but he could be annoyingly persistent when he wanted something. The slowed contents of my stomach crunched with how brittle they'd become within the fast few seconds that they caused a slight ache when I responded. "Because it's probably better to have the more powerful person on your side."

Alastair looked down and finished wrapping my ankle. "That's your reason."

"What else would it be?" I turned my head to stare into the misty trees. "He makes an excellent weapon. A tool for mass destruction. What else could I possibly want other than that?"

Alastair was quiet for several moments. "Then I suppose we should keep him." He straightened up.

My heart tumbled as if it had taken a fall down a staircase. "What?"

"It's your birthday today. You're fourteen-years-old. Perhaps he shall be your gift."

"But that's not for us to decide!" My voice was up before I had a chance to mute it down.

"Perhaps, you should ask him then," Alastair turned and walked toward another heavily wooded area, but not before I saw the faintest hint of what could only be described as a smug grin.

I'd never seen the man wear that before.

My words dried up, since I couldn't think of anything nasty enough to say to wipe that expression off. I reached down and grabbed my shoe, and carefully slid it over the dressed wound. "Where are you going?" I asked stiffly instead.

"Unlike Hannah, I will confess that my bowels need emptying. I suggest you find a place too. We're going to be traveling for the rest of the day," he replied before disappearing into the fog.

I flexed my toes on the bandaged foot, and slid off the end of the cart, sinking a bit in the softened dirt. The pain had returned to being a meager twinge that arose only if I stepped just right.

I did as Alastair requested, forcibly ignoring our little conversation and his weird satisfaction. My walk got lighter with each step as I pushed past the strangeness until there was a slight spring in my gait. Now that my ankle was taken care of, it didn't hurt.

Inside my chest trilled with butterflies, which disturbed me. Butterflies were frolicky creatures that should shrivel in my presence.

I was not unaccustomed to a sense of pleasure, but it was drastically different than what I'd experienced when I'd destroyed my classroom or when I'd stolen Henry Cuthbert's undergarments when he'd gone for a swim. I'd had the pure delight of seeing his ruby face, when he was forced to witness the display I'd left in the heart of Emrin. There had been no butterflies but rather a sensation of a black Condish panther, leering into the eyes of its mortified prey.

Today had been an excellent day that I'd enjoyed tremendously, excluding Alastair. The storm had been breathtaking, the fight with peacekeepers was extremely gratifying, but it was so much more than that. The exhilaration of leaping through fire to steal a renegade kept my mind flying higher than anything else.

Grey was a Chaos child.

Normally, I hated questions. I loathed getting involved in anything, but this was something I had to talk to people to get answers for, and I'd missed the perfect opportunity to ask Alastair about Chaos children.

They weren't a topic that was brought up much. They were bad. They were evil. That was why peacekeepers had to check us, however the way they'd painted the image of them: as unhinged psychopaths, who had no comprehensive thought, always confused me. It would have to be obvious when a lunatic tried to enter town and blast you with wild wind or flood open the gate with their insurmountable power.

After meeting Grey, I understood. He was quite sane. I clearly hadn't known what he was. He'd kept the mark hidden. And he held awesome power that, if he'd wanted, could have wiped us all out. But he didn't. He did what every peacekeeper said Chaos children didn't do. He saved our lives. He protected us. He didn't even kill the peacekeepers that had tried to kill him when he clearly could have.

I shook my head, the corners of my mouth upturned for some crazy reason. Selfless freak.

'Then I suppose we should keep him.'

I paused and leaned back against a tree. That's what Alastair had said, but Grey had tried to run away from us too, back at the old ladies' place. Even when we'd stopped in the remote patch of forest here, he'd been about to say he had to leave. But Alastair had somehow known to play on the fact that he would want to pay us back for getting him away from the peacekeepers and got him to go fetch firewood for later, ultimately prolonging Grey's stay. But he didn't want to stay.

I crossed my arms. Why was Alastair being so indulgent, though? Why was he being foolish enough to keep a Chaos child with us? Maybe he didn't believe they were monsters like everyone else did, but he must know the danger of having one with us.

"When man's eyes doth shine with distance, tis' not his gaze that is gone, but his heart." I jolted upright and stared at Grey, his arms full of damp logs and branches.

"What are you prattling?" I acted as though he hadn't surprised me.

"Javon, the poet. An Eerdian, who was born hundreds of years ago. He's written several novels filled with his lovely poetry." Grey adjusted his bundle and leaned his head back as he concentrated. "The rest of the line goes: across the hills, plains, and all oceans to his fair lass that has him claimed." His lifted his eyebrows at me, his twisted smile making its appearance. "Does some fair lass have you claimed?"

I ignored the dark figure that briefly flashed through my mind, not remotely considering her deep eyes that glinted amber in sunlight or that black braided hair woven with a few silver strands, making it glitter. I did momentarily think of the large deadly axe she swung over her shoulder though.

I gave a long groan, shaking my head. "No, never. Women are a nuisance. Besides I'm thir—fourteen." I knew plenty of boys my age that gushed over girls that caught their fancy. But it didn't matter to me. Girls looked at me with the same old expression as the boys, so I returned the favor.

Her stunning glare that could catch the iciest mountains ablaze flickered back in, but I shoved it far far away.

I pushed off of my perch and the two of us made our way back to the cart. "And you're apparently a lover of books. You and Alastair will get along well." I rolled my eyes.

Grey shrugged. His own eyes misted over, but I knew he wasn't thinking of some girl. It was that same look that he had when he was trying to duck out about twenty minutes earlier.

"Alastair has lots of books," I said quickly. "I figure that as a runaway you don't get to read very much. That big trunk is filled to the brim. The man literally lives in a library."

Grey sighed. "It's tempting. My parents taught me a lot, including a love for knowledge and culture."

"Then go ahead and read to your heart's content. Alastair would love to have someone who actually cared about those things."

He didn't say anything in reply, and my legs got heavier with each step that nothing was said.

"Well then, do you have some stupid lass that you're thinking about?" I broke through by asking a dumb question.

That perked him up or at least brought him back. "Sadly, no. I'm sure if I could spend time in towns, I'd be very popular. I wouldn't just have one lovely lady. I'd have many."

I scoffed.

He shrugged again. "But if we're going off of your standards, I just turned fourteen a few days ago, as well."

He opened his mouth again, but the distant sound of galloping made us freeze. At the sound of men's shouts, Grey's eyes slammed shut and his fingers around the wood went white as he curled them in tight. "I should have gone," he whispered.

I sprung forward and grabbed his wrist, jerking him forward, and his pile of kindling fell to our feet. "Come on!" I hissed, and we shoved through the bramble and bushes until we saw Alastair sitting patiently on the open coach. "They're here," I told him as I leapt aboard, dragging Grey up with me.

Alastair straightened. "Where?"

"A mile or so, that way." I gestured the way we'd come.

"Look," Grey interrupted. "They're after me. If I go on my own, you—"

"I'll get the girls." Alastair leapt down and dashed into the woods.

I ground my teeth. He had better hurry, I thought. Or I'll take these horses myself. There was a snap of a whip like a brisk slap across the cheek. Grey flinched. "Salem, I am very grateful, but—"

"Shut up and get down!" I snarled and shoved him to my feet before I grabbed the reins.

Alastair, Hannah, and Sera burst out of the thicket. The old man swung the ladies on the back. "Tuck in," he told them.

"It's the peacekeepers again, isn't it?" Hannah murmured, hugging herself. "Why don't we just hand the...the child over?"

A growl burned in my throat as I made to step over the cart wall, toward her. "That child saved your a—!"

Alastair jumped up beside me and put an arm up in front of me. "That won't matter, Hannah. Remember you tried to tell them before that you weren't affiliated with him. They didn't listen then. I doubt that's changed. We're all in this together."

Hannah nodded slowly and knelt beside Alastair's book-chest.

"Where's your nephew's home again?" The old man turned and sat, yanking me down next to him.

"Ryle is staying in Umforth," Sera said. "It's south of—"
"I know where it is," Alastair snatched the reins from my clenched hand and steered the horses around. "But we're going to be taking the bumpy route." We rode deeper into the trees where roots tangled up and around each other. Stone and dirt skidded up around us as we violently rocked and swayed, holding on for dear life.

The hags groaned and whined as we bounded along. Alastair's gaze fastened on right in front of him as mine slid down to the crouched, pale-haired boy, who tugged his scarf up over his chin.

* * *

We rode for hours. Eventually the way cleared a bit, and the jumbling path we were forging, settled.

Grey actually napped on my feet. The ladies were silent again, so perhaps they'd fallen asleep too.

"We have to stop for camp soon," Alastair commented. "It will be getting dark."

I glanced up at the sky. It had never really gotten bright. Also, the heavy overhang of trees didn't help.

Grey's head shot up, his already fluffy hair stuck out in even more directions. "What's happening?" He spoke quickly, his head twitching back and forth.

I wiggled my numb toes and shook my boots until the needled feeling dispersed a bit. "We haven't heard the peacekeepers for a long time. I think we'll probably be good for a while."

Grey turned his head to me, scary eyes wide. Somehow they appeared larger than before. He looked far more like a person should when they've just woken up. I bet I could have beat him in a spar if I tried now.

"Do you think you can actually sleep when you're supposed to?" I asked. "You seem to have a bad habit of sleeping in the daytime,"

Grey grinned sheepishly. "My schedule is a little off. I find traveling at night to be an easier way to run and not get caught." He lifted himself up and sat beside me, leaning his head over the back of the bench. "But don't worry," he yawned. "It's been a long day. I'll sleep just fine."

I elbowed him in the side, and that got a satisfying 'oof' from him. "You can't even wait until we get there?"

Grey chuckled and rubbed where I'd jabbed him.

Alastair brought us to a relatively clear area. It wasn't completely flat, but it would work for our purposes. He again sent Grey off for firewood, and he brought me over to his trunk to help him shift his books so we could get to the blanket for the girls, which he apparently had at the very bottom.

"I told him that he should stick with us, since the peacekeepers are after all of us at the moment. It won't do any good for us to separate now, so he should come back," Alastair murmured to me as if I were worried.

I lugged up three enormous volumes and put them in the pile. "Why should I care if he comes back?" I grunted and ducked down to grab more.

"Didn't you want a weapon of mass destruction?"

Cold washed down my back. I pulled up and added to the ever-growing mountain of tomes. "Yeah, but you wouldn't just let me have that."

Alastair's eyes flashed away from me. "Well, he is quite helpful. And if the peacekeepers do manage to find us, he's probably the best at distracting them enough for us to get away."

I stood up with the last few books in my hands. The top one had the title, 'The Tale of Two Moons,' by Javon of Bernath. "Are we on the run now too?" I asked.

Alastair took the books from me. "Not forever. For now we are, but if we manage to evade them until we get to Umforth, we should be able to return to Emrin."

"But won't they go tell the other peacekeepers to look for us since we saved a Chaos child?"

Alastair pulled out a thin purple sheet that couldn't possibly keep anything warm or comfortable in the outdoors. There was a faint sigil that looked like a rounded square with wavy lines inside it, stitched into the corner that was the same color. I had no need to question it further.

"They're going to be looking for a man named Donavan Herwith, traveling with his wife, sister-in-law, and two boys," Alastair replied, kicking the tarp off the wooden wagon and onto the pebbled dirt below. Then he whipped the purple blanket up and spread it over the back. "I'm going to drop the girls off in Umforth, with their nephew. Then we'll no longer be the group, and when asked for my name, I will not be Donavan."

I sat on the side of the cart. "What about Grey?"

There it was again. That trace of a smile on Alastair that unnerved me. "We'll have to see when we get to that point."

With the help of more of Alastair's sigils, we dried enough wood to start a decent campfire. The four of us munched silently on the leather strips that the alchemist brought in another small pouch. It wasn't much, and we were all starving, but it would have to tide us over.

Afterward, Alastair helped the ladies back up and onto the nice alchemisted blanket bed, while he sent Grey and I to the ratty tarp on the uneven ground. He volunteered to take the first watch.

Hannah grabbed his sleeve. "I don't know if I can sleep, Ali."

"Why, dear Hannah?" Alastair asked.

"That thing is right over there," hissed Sera. "What are you thinking, bringing him with us so far?"

My eyes narrowed, the scratchy material bunched in my curled fingers. "They have no idea what you did for them. It was you who was keeping them stocked. You were giving them all the prime amicas. It wasn't some stupid ghost."

Grey gave a permissible nod. "This world is trained to hate the Chaos children. From youth, they are instigated into thinking we're all terrible, feral creatures who will obliterate them if we get the chance." He cocked his head and blinked his big unnatural eyes at me. "You go to school. Have they not told you what we're supposedly like?"

I rolled my eyes. "Of course they have, but I don't listen to the people who instantly paste me as the wrath of the town. The worst of souls to exist in Adderghast."

"Well, you're obviously not that."

I gave a huff. "You're wrong."

Grey shook his head, his annoying smile playing at his mouth. "You truly are a mess. You hate those who judge you, claiming you as a terrible wretch, but when someone doesn't see you as such, you say they're wrong."

I flung my arms up. "Well, when the world only sees you one way, how can you be anything else?"

He raised one pale eyebrow. "I thought you were a rebel."

"What?" My head twitched.

He leaned back on his hands and stared up at the cloudy night sky. There were no stars visible through the billowing stratosphere. "So which came first? Did people start by misjudging you, and so you became what they claimed? Or did you act out and people started automatically assuming the worst?"

I stared silently at the freak of nature.

"It's the bird and the egg concept." He went on after a while of my reticence.

I tore my eyes away from him and looked down at my hands. Raw reddish skin from jumping through the fire had replaced Vonet's dried blood. "It's not the bird and the egg," I muttered. "The answer is inarguably the second of the two. I am who I am and I can't cha—" Grey's words from a moment before had somehow flown over my head, but it was that moment that they finally landed.

My mouth snapped shut as I sat up straight and spun my attention back to the boy that still gazed up at the darkened oblivion. "Is there not even a small part of you that sees me as the bane of the world? You don't think I should burn in the lowest fiery pit for all eternity?"

Grey jerked forward, eyes widening, then he choked and burst out laughing. He wrapped his arms around his middle and shook so hard the tarp slid down us both. He rubbed at his watering eyes and turned his crooked grin onto me. "Honestly? You honestly believe that I would want that for you? For anyone?" He shook his head and sighed, still chuckling a little. "I suppose there is one person I wouldn't mind burning for a long time, but it's certainly not you. I don't know all the things you've done Salem, but I sincerely doubt that anyone truly wants that for you."

I'd been quoting Forsythia, Eye of Delaney. And others had said it, maybe not with their mouths. But their eyes and their actions said enough. Grey was an anomaly of epic proportions. "What if I'd won the fight in the orchard?" I asked. "You wouldn't think as you do now. You might not think at all." I whispered the last sentence quiet enough that not even the boy next to me could hear it as I again glanced down at my unbloodied knuckles.

"That's not possible," Grey mused. "I'm way too good."

"But think of my intentions! I intended to pound you!" I threw at him.

"Didn't we already talk about this?" Grey removed his overly versatile scarf and cushioned it beneath his head. "Salem, do you want me to think of you as a monster? Will that make you feel better?"

I followed him down onto the jagged ground, grimacing at the small rocks digging into the back of my skull. Grey stretched out the red material in an offering to share it as a sort of pillow. I turned my head away from him. "Well at least then you wouldn't be delusional," I muttered.

"How kind of you to not want that for me," I heard Grey say.

I shuffled in the dirt, finding no comfort. "I don't know the meaning of the word."

"Whatever you say," he yawned and went silent.

After a while I flipped over and stared at the pale kid who had just turned fourteen-years-old. He faced the sky, eyes closed, breathing peacefully. A portion of his long scarf was still extended out to me. I found my hand reaching out and curling around the fabric. It was so soft, almost silky but warm like wool.

The cloth had been through more than I knew. Just that day it had been stretched when the peacekeeper had it yanked it around with Grey on the other end. It had also been used to beat out the fire on my leg. I could see the rest of the runaway's worn, ragged clothes that had been washed, patched, and been over more terrain than I'd ever seen. But this scarf managed to look new. It was incredible.

I rubbed the red between the pads of my fingers. It wasn't like fire. It wasn't like blood.

"Are you not going to ask me?"

I jumped, my hand involuntarily tightening on the scarf.

Grey's eyes were closed. His voice was heavy and slow.

I didn't let go of the red. "What's the truth?" I whispered. "What are Chaos children?"

His lips twitched. "What exactly have you been told beyond the conventional description?"

I stroked my thumb over the material. "Chaos children are people who get caught up in a storm or some kind of chaotic force that Chaos created. Before they're killed by the disaster, he offers them a chance to live with some of his twisted power. They accept but at the price of their minds, losing any control, becoming savages that only want to destroy, just like the fate that chose them."

Grey didn't say anything for a while and I thought he must be asleep for real, but then he breathed out. "They're just like you."

I flinched.

"They're just like Alastair. They're just like Sera and Hannah. Chaos children are like any man, woman, or child. They're minds aren't messed up by Chaos giving them power." Grey opened and closed his mouth a few times before continuing. "Part of what you've been told is true, but part of it is not. Yes, during Chaos's storms, floods, or other disasters people die. Most people die. Chaos will see a family on a ship and send waves to sink it. The mother, father, and daughter will all die. But he will curse the son to live without them."

I shook my head. "What?"

"Chaos doesn't offer life to people. He doesn't ask permission. At death's door, he blocks the way and forces his mark on them. They live under his cursed eye." His hand twitched up, toward his own neck where Chaos's brand inked his skin.

"In truth, he won't necessarily kill the whole family. Sometimes, most do manage to live. But even if one, like the father, saves his family and ends up being the only one to die, Chaos might claim him," Grey went on. "In doing that though, he'll still end up having to leave his family behind, because the world will hunt him for the rest of his life."

"Chaos children aren't crazy," I murmured.

He smiled, weakly. "Chaos's power doesn't degrade their sanity, but sometimes, living the life they have to, can a little bit."

"There haven't been any new Chaos children in years, though," I said. "Chaos has been missing for over a decade."

"Yes, that's the rumor. I'm the youngest Chaos child that I've met." Grey gave a big yawn. "My father said that the Fate must have seen Chaos as going too far after completely obliterating one of the four biggest cities in Adderghast, killing thousands of people."

I swallowed. "So if the fates took down Chaos, why didn't they wipe out the children too?"

He answered promptly, without a beat between, even though I'd basically asked why he wasn't dead. "I think they must know what the peacekeepers don't. That we're victims too."

Another long stretch of silence made its way into the conversation, but I was curious about one more thing. "How did you become a Chaos child?"

He let out a breath that sounded almost like a light snore, but he answered. "How do you think?"

"You were struck by lightning?"

Again, there was a weighted pause. This one lengthened out for several minutes. I thought he might surprise me again, but finally I accepted that he'd truly drifted off.

I rolled onto my back so that I also faced the dark clouds. I didn't tuck the scarf under my head like Grey intended, but I did keep a hold of it, taking the end up and rested it over my chest.

The roiling charcoal haze of clouds slowly parted, revealing the two celestials. One of them was a large blue orb that glowed bright. The other was a little further back. It was pale pink, but it blazed just as bright as the other that it hung beside.