His eyes and mouth rounded as if I'd given him the key to Adderghast's great castle itself.

"There are so many books!" Grey gaped into the first room before dashing up the steps to ogle the next.

"Well, it is a library," I muttered, following more slowly.

"How are they organized? How many rooms are there? Do you actually know the number of books in each one? In total?"

"By topic. Twelve. No. And no."

Grey read the sign above the room that said philosophy and the arts. "Oh! Do you have Javon the poet in here? Or Lady Samali?" Without waiting for an answer he tried to march into the room but was repelled backward as Alastair's sigil warded him out.

I snorted.

He looked at me, affronted. "Why can't I go in?"

"You need a key. Alastair has them." I gestured for him to follow me to the old man's study. Along the way I pointed to one of the diamond carvings with the slash through it next to one of the doorframes.

"It's locked alchemically?" His fingers traced it.

"I might have taken some of his books and torn out the pages to make paper birds to throw at people who annoyed me."

"Ah," Grey said.

We reached one of the few rooms with an actual wooden door. I thrust it open.

Alastair glanced up from a huge map he had unfolded on his desk. At the sight of Grey beside me, his strained frame visibly relaxed. "Thank the fates," he murmured.

Grey fiddled with his scarf. "Wow, I can't leave you two for five minutes."

"We get attached very quickly." Alastair smiled.

"I'm not attached," I said. They both looked at me, and I crossed my arms. "We came for a key to get into the library rooms. Grey likes books."

"Do you?" Alastair's eyebrows shot up. "What interests do you have, Grey?"

"Anything I can get my hands on, Sir. My father told me of the world around us, the land, the culture, the dances, and the wars. And my mother taught me about the inner worlds of the human mind. Both are vast and infinite. They're places that are always in need of exploration and pursuit."

Alastair's old eyes lost ten years of age as a smile filled them with light I'd never seen before. He looked as if I'd just handed him a second key to the castle.

I groaned. I knew they'd get along.

* * *

"Perrianne of Irst was the mapmaker that discovered the neighbor lands of Cond and Eerd. She met her husband on Eerd, a man named Coriant. The two of them practically lived at sea in search of new land. They mapped out several of the smaller islands of Cond before going back to her home of Irst." Grey shook his head, staring at the page. He sat at the base of one of the shelves, surrounded by tomes. He glanced down at an old scroll beside him with several sketched drawings of trees and mountains. "It's incredible, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I muttered, slouching in a chair by the window. The fading light cast orange trails along the floor, pouring over the boy enraptured with the old scratchings of dead people. "It is incredible that anyone would want to live on the frozen wastelands of Irst. You know what they say, 'Irst is the worst.'"

"Perrianne was an ice giant who left her home to explore places so different from her own," Grey continued, unperturbed. "I've always heard they were a more solitary people, especially with their partialness to the cold. I've heard they struggle in hotter climates."

I leaned forward and rested my chin on my hands. "Where have you heard these things exactly?"

"I told you," Grey didn't look up. "My parents taught me."

There were so many unsaid things there. What happened to his parents? Were they dead? Did he just leave them? I opened my mouth several times to formulate one of those questions, but before I could, scary blue eyes darted up to me.

"Has Alastair taught you any alchemy?"

I straightened up. "Alchemy is illegal," I said automatically.

"Clearly, you two care deeply about what's legal." He cocked his head.

My shoulders relaxed. "Can you imagine me using alchemy? What do you think is the first thing I'd do?"

"Blow this place up." He shrugged.

"And a few other places." I fell back again, my head hitting hard against the stone wall behind me. "Alastair's not stupid."

After a few minutes of only the sound of turning pages I asked, "Do you have an interest in the magic science?"

"I have an interest in everything."

"Of course you do."

"What do you have an interest in?"

"Nothing."

Grey's hand hovered a moment over the book. Then he put it aside and shuffled through the stray papers around him. He scanned each one over briefly and then finally he lifted one up and stretched it out to me.

I stared without taking it.

He shook it so that it flapped in my face.

"What's that?" I snapped.

"Do you have an interest?"

I scowled.

Grey grinned.

I still didn't take it, so he set it on my lap. I continued to glare at him, refusing to look at the paper.

Grey turned back to his book and settled comfortably against the shelf behind him.

For a moment I didn't move. I could just toss the parchment on the floor, but it wasn't long before my eyes betrayed me and I glanced down. It was a painting. A painting of a city cast over with a dark sky. There were remnants of what was sure to be large, strong buildings, but were bashed in heaps of crumbled rock. There were homes that were no more than piles of dust, blazing fires sent up plumes of black smoke, blood streaked over the stone roads. Outlines of people laying dead. Others ran, screaming.

I heard them.

I smelled the smoke.

Bolts of lightning, very much like the ones at the orchard, struck down. Wind bashed everything around as if it was a giant's fist. Hail beat down as if that giant were also hurling stones.

I felt it.

I felt the power of the storm shuddering through me like I was being ripped apart from the inside as the world did the same around me.

My trembling hands curled around the edges of the painting, almost tearing it in half. I chucked it away, but it fluttered through the air anticlimactically.

Grey's eyes followed its drifting descent. "Feraway, the cursed city."

"And what makes you think that I would have an interest in that?" I crossed my arms tightly, my face feeling flushed.

"It's a storm," he replied quietly. "You love them."

My nails tightened on my shirtsleeves, pulling them taut. I looked away from him. "You're testing me. That's the storm that wiped out nearly everyone living in that place. You want to know if I could love the storm for doing something so awful."

Grey didn't say anything.

I whirled back to him and shot to my feet. "What if I told you that I do still love it?"

He looked up at me calmly. "I'd believe you."

I let out a breath as if it had been trapped in my chest for a long time. It felt good. My tense shoulders dropped and I steadily walked over to the painting. I picked it up and looked at it again. My fingers traced along the piercing light that set fire to someone's home in the picture. I opened my mouth and almost told him that I was one of the survivors. Instead, I closed my mouth and rolled up the parchment.

"So it's true," Grey's tone shifted completely.

I turned back to him. He was beaming down at an old book with a gold leaf press in the corner of it. That meant it was one of Alastair's first editions. I placed the scrolled up painting on a shelf and went to get a better look.

It was another copy of 'The Tale of Two Moons' By Javon of Bernath and E.

"There was a rumor that he didn't write these poems on his own," Grey said, his hand hovering over the lone letter E. "Someone studied it and said the style of some of them were different and others had definite signs of being co-authored."

"So?"

Grey chuckled. "My mom and I talked about it sometimes. We had a theory of who the other author might be." He lifted up the book. "And this shows that we might have been onto it."

"Who did you think it was?" I asked.

Grey grinned up at me. "Elluare."

I straightened in surprise. "The human who fell in love with a fate?"

"The book is literally called 'The Tale of Two Moons', referring to their love story."

"That's because it's one of the most infamous love stories," I countered. "Lots of people have used titles relating to them. The expression 'moon-crossed lovers' comes from those two."

"Do you not believe it actually happened?"

"It's a story. A lot of the old fate stories are just that. Elluare didn't exist, other than being a literal moon. Fates are just fates. They're not so human as to fall in love."

Grey sighed and shook his head and returned his attention to the book with a sense of awe. "Where's your sense of romance?"

"Wherever your sanity is," I muttered and headed back toward my chair.

Alastair's voice warbled up the stairs, calling us to dinner.

My stomach rumbled loudly and swear Grey's did too. As quickly, but also as respectfully as he could, he slid all the books and papers off of his lap and jumped to his feet. I was already out the door where the smell of stew hit hard. With all the travel neither of us had had much in the past two days besides amicas and some berries that Alastair had deemed safe. Grey tumbled out onto the stairs after me, and once the smell hit him he looked like he might pass out. The pair of us raced down the steps, shoving each other to get there first. We both burst through the doors into the small kitchen where I saw the dreaded vegetable sitting on the counter.

"Oh, don't tell me you put onions in it," I groaned.

Alastair ladled the soup into a bowl and placed it on the small table beside two others.

"Plus, we had stew at the old ladies' place."

Grey sat down and inhaled deeply. "Is-is there meat in this?" He sounded like he was about to burst into joyous tears.

"Yes," Alastair said. "Beef."

"Beef?" Grey's already ample eyes widened. "I don't remember the last time I had beef."

Alastair sat down next to him, and I grudgingly followed. It didn't smell awful, but the onions were definitely going to ruin it.

Grey clasped his hands together. He looked at us. "I'm sorry, but is it okay for me to thank Santhe?"

Santhe was the fate of sustenance.

Alastair nodded and even clasped his own hands.

I rolled my eyes as the two of them bowed their heads and Grey gave thanks. The moment he opened his eyes, he dived for his spoon. He leaned in, but his scarf almost fell into the bowl. He looked up at Alastair. "Again, I apologize. Would it be alright if I removed my..."

"Of course," I snapped. Grey jumped and Alastair glanced at me. I stiffened. "Why wouldn't that be okay? We both know about you. I doubt Alastair has any visitors planning on barging in."

Alastair cleared his throat. "Yes, Grey. Go right ahead."

For some reason Grey was very slow and careful as he removed his scarf as if he were embarrassed.

I didn't get it. Both Alastair knew it was there and he'd been fine the night before when he'd shared the scarf with me to use as a pillow.

Grey seemed to recover quickly, though, as he chowed down on the food like it was water from Lake Euphora.

As we ate, I admit my eyes were drawn to it. The first time I'd seen the mark, it was during utter pandemonium, and the second time it had been in the dark of night. I could see it now in full view under the light of the oil lamp. It stood out starkly against his ice white skin, and his neck was even whiter than the rest of him, save for the remaining bruises of being strangled. The black of the eye that swirled around the center like a cyclone didn't look like it was painted on or needled through his skin like a tattoo. It sort of seemed slightly sunken in as if it had been hiding beneath the skin and had decided to rise to the surface.

As I'd noticed before, the center was directly over his pulse. It gave the eye movement and its own sort of life. I shivered and forced myself to stare at my barely touched soup. I realized why he'd been hesitant to reveal it. I remembered some people gossiping and saying how it wasn't called the Eye of Chaos for nothing. They said that Chaos was still around through his chosen children, and his mark was how he watched us all.

I angrily scooped up a bite that had a large chunk of onion in it. I shoved it into my mouth. But that was ridiculous. It was just another stupid story that people made up. I looked up again and almost choked when I saw Grey staring at me.

"Onions aren't so bad, right?" He smiled.

I swallowed too fast and coughed hard. "They're—bloody awful," I managed through watering eyes.

Grey snickerd and I kicked his shin from under the table. He stuck his tongue out at me and my anger faded just a little.

* * *

I awoke when it was still dark out. The calm sound of the night chirpers came from outside. I yawned and went to roll over, my eyes straying down to the floor where Grey had been sleeping on one of Alastair's magic blankets.

He wasn't there.

I sat up straight and squinted around the room. He could have gone out to the outhouse. Slowly, I laid back down but kept my eyes open. After around twenty minutes I got out of bed. He wouldn't have left. He couldn't have left. We'd already been through all that. I opened my door and tried to adjust to the darkness as if I would see him standing in the stairwell. He liked books. Maybe he just went back into one of the library rooms.

I turned around to grab my shirt from the end of my cot, and that's when I thought I saw something move outside. I went over to the window and looked down to see a white-blond head going down to the ground and pushing himself up and then going down again in a quick repetitive pattern.

I put on my shirt and went back to the stairs. Pushing out into the dark, I circled around as quietly as I could, my stockinged feet helping in that endeavor. I would have grabbed shoes, but one pair had been chopped up by Niko Sajes after I'd soaked her friend's dress in oil, and the other I'd pawned off to a beggar to find out what direction this one particular idiot had run off to.

I found said idiot on the side of the building. He was moving his fists forward and back as if punching an invisible foe.

"What in the name of Fate are you doing?"

Unfortunately, Grey was unsurprised and didn't jump when I stepped out from behind the tower. He straightened up. "Good morning," he greeted.

I looked up at the inky sky. "Define morning."

"It'll be getting light soon." He pushed back his slightly damp hair that I assumed was from sweat.

"You didn't answer my question. What are you doing at such an unholy hour?" I walked over and leaned against the water pump.

Grey stretched out his leg. "Training."

"For what?"

"Life."

I glared at him. He switched and stretched out his other leg. "My father taught me how to take care of myself," he explained. "We would get up every morning and train. I've already jogged around the tower a few times, practiced falling and getting up, and—"

"I don't know if you know this but we're kids." I cut him off short. "We don't have to have a strict exercise routine."

"You do if you want to be a knight." He spread his feet apart and moved back and forth shifting weight smoothly from one to the other. "Or if I decide to be around you. Obviously you have to keep in shape to annoy as many people as you do." He smirked.

I shoved off of the pump and stalked toward him. "Obviously that's why I annoy them. I'd never want to be considered lazy." Grey chuckled. "So, a knight?" I asked. "Are you planning on enlisting yourself to the king? I'm sure his peacekeepers won't notice."

"No," his smile dropped. "But that doesn't mean I can't be a knight for myself."

I stopped and scrunched my eyes at him. "So you decided to get up at Alon's execrable buttcrack of dawn to beat yourself out so that you end up napping like a cat the rest of the day just to be your own imaginary knight?"

Grey took a deep breath before he brought back his grin. "Hit me."

I jerked back as he'd been the one to strike me. "Excuse me?"

"I'm giving you permission to take a swing."

Adjusting myself slowly, I spoke. "Ah, but that takes all the fun out of—" I brought my fist up as fast as I could, but Grey sidestepped and brought his arm up to push mine up so he had a clear shot to duck forward and shoulder me in the stomach. I tumbled backward, the air knocked out of me for the hundredth time.

"It pays off." He smiled down at me.

I glared back.

He reached out his hand to me.

I ignored it and shoved myself up.

"So do you maybe want to try this time or was that all you've got?" His twisted grin sent its own fiery current through my veins.

I snarled, "Alright fairy boy, let's play." I charged and he easily moved to my left. I spun and swung high. He ducked. I swung low. He spun away from the blow. He didn't strike out at me, just continued maneuvering around so that I never brushed him. It was like he was predicting each move before I made it.

"You're not watching me," he said.

"Oh yeah, I'm watching the library erode behind you. It's a lot more fascinating." I ground my teeth, trying not to pant like a dog as my lungs strained to keep up with this game.

"I'm sure it is." He smirked again. "You're aiming for me where I stand right before you throw your punch. You're not aiming for where I will be."

"I can't see the future," I hissed.

"That's because you're not watching me." He gracefully leapt over my leg as I tried a different tactic. "Watch my core." He gestured around his waist and stomach. "With slight movements here you can see where I'll move next."

"But that means you're watching mine, so you'll know what I do and then you'll reroute yourself."

Grey tapped his temple, smiling. "Now you're thinking like a chess player."

I tried what he said and failed. I tried again and again and again and my knuckles grazed his shirt. I stumbled forward several steps past him, my eyes widening.

"Also your stance is atrocious," Grey said as I turned to face him again. His ankle shot out and caught mine from behind and he jerked it back. My legs flew out from beneath me and I landed hard on my tailbone with a bruising thud. "You need to work on that too." He leered.

The pain shot up to my head and turned red. I dove for his legs and victoriously caught one of them. He elegantly folded forward and rolled back up to his feet in one fluid movement.

"You...think...you're...so great..." I said through uncontained gasping breaths.

He bowed.

We went on with the one-sided spar for longer than I realized. The colors in the sky lightened from soft purples to pinks and on to the golden orange of daybreak. I watched his hips move ever-so-slightly to the right, so I shot left and skimmed his shoulder as he did a double-feign. I grinned. He'd just barely managed to catch what I'd done after I predicted him.

"Well, well. Finally catching on are we?" He arched an eyebrow, half-smiling.

I opened my mouth and he did the exact move from before and took me out from the legs. I crashed to the ground with a cry of surprise and a grunt of pain.

"But your stance is still awful." He reached out his hand again to help me.

I glowered at it before my arm shot up and snatched his scarf instead. I yanked him down close. "I'll beat you someday, Grey. Don't forget that. I'll beat you and it will be glorious."

With that infuriating grin, he gave me a nod.

I thrust him away from my face and got up right as a high scream echoed over to us. I spun and we both stared up the hill that led to the small circle of vendors that Forsythia tended to hang around.

"What was that?" Grey stepped beside me.

"Probably that witch telling people about how the world will end." The place was a little ways off, so it was hard to see much from where we were.

"WE HAVE TO RUN! HIDE!" A girl's voice that was not the false clairvoyant screeched.

Without looking at each other we ran for the circle. New holes made their way through the new socks I wore as I dashed over the rocks and dirt. I ignored the jabbing. We skidded to a halt at the rim of the sales carts. A small crowd of people encircled around the crier. On tip toes we could just see the top of her head and a balding one beside it. I glanced at Grey who adjusted his scarf so that it was pulled just over his chin. Then we pushed past the people until we stood at the front.

A girl of about sixteen was shaking and trembling in the center. A heavier guy who owned one of the food stalls had his thick arm around her. "It's alrigh', Livia," he said. "Jus' breathe."

"You don't understand!" She shouted. "They're here! Somehow they've gotten in! I don't know how, but there's one...there's one here!" She looked like she was about to collapse and the man holding her was the only thing keeping her upright.

"Take a deep breath, Livia. I'm sure it's gonna' be okay."

Livia shook her head. "NO! Didn't you hear me?" She sobbed hysterically.

"You haven't told us nothing, girl." An older woman that stood in front of a stand that had vials filled with different colored liquids, berated her.

"There's one of them!" Livia shivered harshly. "It got past the peacekeepers. It's a...a..."

"Chaos child."

Everyone's heads swerved around to stare at Forsythia, who stepped out from the circle of people to stand in the middle with Livia and the man, straight across from us. She seemed to have recovered from yesterday. Her mouth was set in a grim line as her heavily make-upped eyes stared past the teary girl and directly at Grey.

I stepped in front of him.

"Yes!" Livia bawled. "At Swarling Way!"

Silence followed this exclamation. I continued to glare down the fortuneteller. In the hush, shouts from off in the distance were made out and a corroborative tremor passed through the earth, right under our feet. As one, the small circle of entertainers and sellers erupted. The shop-keeps scrambled around their stands, shutting them down as quickly as possible. The gypsies and other street-men grabbed what little they had and ran toward the direction of the castle, away from the impending danger.

My eye-contact with that woman was forcefully broken as the bodies shoved past me and sent me staggering. I snarled as several people stepped on my unprotected toes.

There was a tug on my sleeve. I glanced over to Grey who had a firm set expression. "Take me to Swarling Way."

The smart thing to do would have been dragging him in the opposite direction.

I led him through the wave of people surging against us. No one noticed or cared about two young boys going into the hazard zone. We made it to the fork we'd taken the day before to get to Alastair's neighborhood. I turned us down the furthest road, heading back down, further away from the safety of the tower.

The shaking got worse. The shouts became pleas. Rubble and dust hung in great clouds in front of us. We pressed on. An entire building that had been a woman's workhouse for seamstresses lay in a great pile of stone brickwork. We clambered over, the corners of the bricks scraped and jabbed into the arches and heels of my shoeless feet.

"Please, Mia!" A woman shouted. "Please, you have to listen to me!"

"You have been my warden," said a second woman with a high shaking voice. "I am no longer your prisoner!" There was another tremble and a thud and the first one grunted and went silent.

Grey picked up his pace, and I followed suit, squinting through the dust.

"No one leaves here!" The one that must be Mia shouted. The shaking occurred before something large slammed into the fallen building, sending Grey and I tumbling down hard over the rocks until we landed in the circle where the Swarling well stood.

I pushed myself up on my skinned elbows, wincing and tasting a bit of copper in my mouth. I shook my head to stop the ringing, but that only made it pound harder

Several others besides the two of us were shaking their heads and rising from the fall. They must have been trying to escape the very same way we'd been trying to get in.

The road rose and fell unevenly throughout the circle, some of the flat rocks completely split in half. It was as though there was a great serpent underneath, slithering about, pushing up on the cobblestone, looking for a way to burst out from its cold, dark confines beneath the earth.

Grey stood, his blue eyes shining bright and fixed on the center of the ring. I followed his look and saw a tall, skinny woman in a tattered rag dress, with long, lank hair, standing by the old well. Her bloodshot eyes swiveled around so fast it made me dizzy. Her posture was wide, her arms out. Her fingers were bone-thin and locked like claws. On the back of one of those stiff hands was a mark that looked like a swirling eye with a serrated slash through it.

I'd been told what Chaos children looked like. Goat had shown us drawings. They were always perceived as monsters. They were insane, wild as beasts with a power to destroy an entire village with their wrath.

Grey had told me that Chaos children were normal men and women. It made sense for him. He hadn't fit the mangled portrayal I'd been taught at all.

This woman, on the other hand, was a perfect example.