Sebastian admired how quickly the Arkangels were able to mobilize. In just a few hours, a convoy of about a dozen armored vehicles, each emblazoned with the signal of the hunters, were packed and ready to leave their base. The entire place was buzzing with anticipation as people moved about. Some stopped by their weaponsmith for new gear, others stocked up on supplies for the trip, and others zipped around trying their best to look busy in front of Jocasta.

As for Sebastian and his companions, they found themselves standing near a pickup truck with Imogen's cousin, Autumn.

"I can't believe you brought a magician and a werewolf here," the girl said as she leaned against the door of the truck. Kissing her teeth, she shook her head at Imogen. "You know you nearly got me kicked out of the Arkangels, right?"

"We would've been doing you a favor," Dorian grumbled.

"What was that, wolf?"

He flashed his red eyes at her.

Imogen shot them both a scathing look. "You two, cut it out. We're on the same side now, alright? Start acting like it."

Yeah, for now. Sebastian bit his tongue, though. He could assess the alliance with Jocasta and her dutiful goons later. The only thing that mattered was getting to Hodvekt and coming up with a strategy to defeat his father. The battlemages were all about strategy. War was practically their magical discipline. Instead, it was battlemagic, which might as well have been the same thing.

Sebastian glared at the flecks of mud decorating his boots. When the sunlight hit them in a certain way, a few of the specks almost looked like blood. He arched an eyebrow at one. Maybe it was.

Part of him wasn't looking forward to returning to Hodvekt. The last time he was there, Achilles had been murdered, his father reacquired the Obscurio, and half the town was set ablaze. Something told him the battlemages wouldn't be too happy to see him again—especially with a large battalion of Arkangels at his back.

He groaned.

Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

With his arms folded, he glanced around the camp again. The hunters were nearly finished loading everything up into their vehicles. His chest tightened.

It was too late to back out now.

Another half-hour passed. A hunter, wielding a rifle in one hand and a sword in the other, walked over to let them know it was time to go. The trio of magical troublemakers would be riding in Jocasta's transport. She requested it. Personally. The thought of sitting with the woman for hours in a moving vehicle made Sebastian nauseous.

"Everything okay?" Imogen attempted to slip his hand into hers.

"Er, yeah." He scratched the top of his head, pretending not to notice.

She tilted her head at him. He tried to meet her eyes but couldn't. Furrowing his brows, he half-turned away from her.

"Um, are you sure?"

He could hear the uncertainty in her voice.

Shit.

He was hesitating. Why was he hesitating? Yesterday had been a good day for them. In fact, it was a great day. Nothing changed when he woke up early that morning. What was different now? He didn't know.

He faked a smile.

"Yeah, I'm good," he told her. "Just...feeling a little nervous."

Nodding, placed a hand on his arm. The buzzing in his head stopped. He hadn't even noticed the sound until it was gone. His eyes widened. She did that. A single touch from the girl had quieted his frantic mind. A layer of stress that had been coating his skin like an itchy film melted away. The kiss they shared in the tent replayed in his mind. The grin on his face was now a real one.

He had hesitated before. Too many times before he had closed himself off from the other people. It was easier that way. After his mother vanished, he retreated into himself. He guarded his heart as if he was a guard in Nyghtmir. All these years he had convinced himself he didn't need to let anyone in. Not his sister, not Emile, not the Shades. Definitely not his father.

But two people had proven him wrong these past few weeks.

Makaela and Imogen.

No matter what happened, he'd always have feelings for them both. But he couldn't hold onto them both. A small piece of him clung to Makaela's memory like it was a life raft and he was being drawn out into a sea of his raging emotions. He'd been clinging to it in vain. He was drowning. Deep down, he knew she wouldn't be the one to pull his head out of the water. It couldn't be her. Their paths had diverged when she left him in that forest.

Still, letting her go was easier said than done. Her bright eyes—like melted-down ingots of gold—shone in his mind. She was the first person he ever considered a future with. But now there was Imogen occupying up more space in his head than he would've cared to admit.

Besides,

He took her hand. She looked up at him, her face scrunched up a bit as she waited for him to speak.

"You're being weird."

He didn't care.

He planted a kiss on her cheek. A blush immediately spread across her face.

Out the corner of his eye, he watched Dorian watching them both with an air of curiosity. He could've sworn he spotted the werewolf smirk. What the werewolf thought was irrelevant. Imogen was the only one that mattered right now.

"I'm good," he told her. "I promise."

She took his hand and squeezed it gently.

"Ready to go?" Imogen asked.

Flipping his hood over his messy locks, Sebastian nodded. Hand-in-hand with Imogen and with Dorian right behind them, he made his way toward the front gates of The Ark.

#

Sebastian held his face in his hands for most of the ride. Motion-sickness was starting to get the better of him. The fact he wasn't strapped into his seat like he would've been in a normal vehicle didn't help.

Unlike the rest of the vehicles apart of the Arkangel convoy headed west toward Washington state, Jocasta's was more like a moving home than a truck. Imogen told him it was a modified RV, which apparently stood for 'recreational vehicle'. He wasn't sure what was recreational about this metal beast on wheels. It was long and fitted with two compartments joined together by an accordion-like metal frame in the center that wrapped around part of the walls and the ceiling. Black tint darker than ink covered the windows, blocking out the sunlight.

The front section was closed off, separating them from the driver and another Arkangel snoring obnoxiously in the passenger seat. A table jutted out from the ground. A few metal chairs surrounded it. A couch and some small sofas populated the rest of the space. There was a bathroom tucked away to the side, and a bed hidden away in Jocasta's own private room.

It shouldn't have been able to move, much less rumble through the forest shrouding The Ark at around thirty miles an hour. Ordinaires and their technology never ceased to confuse him. Had they not consistently used their inventions to destroy themselves and the world around them, he could've appreciated their craft and savvy. Instead, he had no respect for their industrious machines.

The Order of the Black Lotus might've been wrong about a lot of things, but their stance on Ordinaires was one he couldn't argue against. Still, murdering and enslaving them was not the answer—no matter what his father thought.

Another wave of nausea crested over Sebastian. It filled his body like sea foam. Cringing, he peered through the gaps in his fingers at Jocasta.

The leader of the Arkangels was sat on a sofa with one leg crossed over the other and a cup of tea in her hand. A small, silver spoon rested in her hand. She stirred her steaming drink carefully. Her icy stare never left the magician sitting across from her. Clenching his jaw, Sebastian lowered his hands and tilted his head at her.

"Alright," he said. "What do you want?"

Dorian, who was stretched out on the carpeted floor like a dog lounging in the summer sun, lifted his head, his ears perked. Next to him, Imogen shot him a quizzical look. He ignored her. Jocasta might've been his ally for now, but that didn't give her the right to regard him like he was some sort of alien. He didn't appreciate the stares, and he had a feeling she knew that.

"Tell me, magician," she began. "Why are you fighting against your family?"

"What?"

"The Order of the Black Lotus. Your father. You're standing against them to protect us. What's the word your kind use? Ordinaires?"

"That's the one."

"Why do you stand with us and not them?"

Sebastian frowned. He wasn't standing with them. He was standing against the Order. It wasn't the same. What happened to the ordinaires didn't really matter to him. But he couldn't let his father succeed. He saw how the man ruled House Tenebris and the council. A world under his domain would be insufferable. Before, the other council members were able to keep him in check. His harsh tactics and ideologies were opposed at every turn. But with Sirus and Achilles dead, Chieftain Naidini isolated from her house, and House Doragon fighting alongside the Shades, there wasn't anyone else strong enough to fight him. House Vaya might as well have been a myth these days.

"If I don't fight back...no one else will," Sebastian finally answered. "We can't let him win. I've seen the things he can do. I know what he will do. A world with him in control is not a world anyone wants to live in."

Jocasta quietly his words. "Tell me about him."

"About my father?"

She nodded.

He squinted at her. "What is this?"

"We have a long ride ahead of us." She took a sip from her tea. "Humor me for a bit."

Sebastian glanced at Imogen for help. She simply shrugged. He rolled his eyes.

"Thorian Tedorof is a cruel, cold man who only cares about himself." Every word was coated in venomous contempt. Memories of all the times the man had hurt and berated him filled his head as he spoke. His upper lip twitched before he continued. "All he wants is power. That's all he's ever wanted. It's why he's been collecting the Eldenarian Artifacts. He already has five of them in his possession. Once he gets the last two..." He shuddered. "I don't even know what'll happen if he does."

"You don't sound fond of him."

"There's nothing to be fond of."

Jocasta chuckled.

Sebastian couldn't find the humor in his words.

"If you grew up the way I did, you wouldn't be too fond of him either."

Jocasta smiled at him. Though, he could see the sadness in her eyes.

"You and I aren't so different," she told him. "My father wasn't the best of men either." She took another sip from her tea. This one was longer, more thoughtful, as if she were collecting her words before speaking to them. "The Arkangel regime was vastly different before I took over after his death. Contrary to what you may think, we don't go searching for conflict with your kind. We fight to protect our own and the world. That's it."

He found that hard to believe.

As a child, he remembered stories about his grandfather, Neven the Dark, battling the hunters. He never met his grandfather. He was murdered during an ambush years before Sebastian was born. Whenever Thorian mentioned it, his face lit up with anger. Now that he thought about it, that event was likely what sparked his intense hatred for the ordinaires.

"We shouldn't be fighting at all," Imogen said. "Magicians and ordinaires shouldn't be enemies. I mean, how did it even get to this point?"

Sebastian was sure he'd been taught the history between the two groups before, but he couldn't be bothered to dig through his brain for the answer. Instead, he let Jocasta tell the story.

"Magic wasn't always a secret," she began. "There was once a time where magicians and ordinaires lived in harmony. But things changed. In the background of the political wars fought amongst ordinaires was a conflict between magic and those who opposed it. The Arkangels were born during the crusades. Our founders created us to protect the world from erratic magicians who brought harm upon this world."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "So your ancestors created an entire group of murderers for a few outliers in our society?"

"A few?" She snorted. "Don't act so innocent, magician. Your people's hands are soaked in just as much blood as ours."

"Yeah, whatever."

"Maybe she has a point," Imogen said. Before Sebastian could argue, she added, "I mean, look at what your father is doing. The Order of the Black Lotus existed before him, right? There's a chance Shades were terrorizing the world long before he started his reign of terror."

Sebastian stayed quiet. He knew the history of the Shades better than anyone. Dark magicians with no moral code. They operated in the shadows, away from the watchful eye of the council and the Eldai who protected them.

Jocasta and Imogen might've had a point.

"This alliance doesn't have to be a temporary thing," Imogen added. "Once we defeat the Order, maybe we can work out some kind of—"

Sebastian cut his eyes to her. The rest of her sentence immediately died in her throat. What was she doing? A permanent peace treaty with the Arkangels was ludicrous. And even if it could be negotiated, who was to say it would last? Someone would mess up eventually. Then they would be back at square one. The two groups would always be at odds. There was too much history to sift through. Too much bad blood to rinse off. Both sets of hands were stained red; he didn't think their sins would ever wash away.

"Peace," Dorian mumbled from the floor. "This world will never know peace."

"For once, I agree with him."

Jocasta set her cup of tea down. "Let's focus on saving the world first. We can worry about other matters later."

Sebastian nodded.

No one spoke for a few hours after that. He didn't mind. The silence was more than welcomed.

#

Sebastian had the brilliant idea to take a nap. There wasn't much else to do in Jocasta's transport. They wouldn't arrive in Hodvekt for a few days, and he'd be damned if he spent most of the journey having pointless conversations with Jocasta. Sleeping was the only way to pass the time without having to talk to anyone.

But with sleep came dreams. As of late, he wasn't too fond of those.

Fortunately, they were fairly normal this time around. Well, as normal as things could be for someone like him. One dream stuck out to him. He'd been standing in the center of the Eldenarian Council room, alone, joined only by the seven thrones arranged into a half-circle at the end of the spacious auditorium. Shadows danced across the black and white tiled ground. Fires in brass pits tried their best to combat the darkness, but their light was no match.

He found himself staring at the chair in the center of the circle; an iron throne painted black and decorated with bones. A dark flag hung feet above it, fluttering like the wings of a bat. He scowled at the sight.

The seat of House Tenebris. His father's seat.

What once was a symbol of strength, honor, and determination was now a symbol of fear, destruction, and evil. He glared at the mark burning in his hand. Despite the reputation his house got for often producing dark magicians, he never felt ashamed of his heritage. These days, though, the shame was starting to creep in.

He wasn't sure if the perception of House Tenebris could be fixed. Even if he did manage to defeat the Order, no one would trust them again.

His eyes never left the black throne.

That didn't mean he wouldn't try. House Tenebris could be good. He could be good. When he got the chance, he would prove it to them. He'd prove it to everyone.

In the distance, he heard whispering. But it wasn't coming from the shadows. No, the voices came from elsewhere. From beyond. He felt the fabric of the dream fade like dyed clothes bleeding into water.

The dream was over. The present awaited him on the other side.