"I don't know how you can be so brash, Aslo," Olivia said as she fluffed up her golden curls in the circular mirror hung above the Victorian fireplace in their living room. "There's something satisfying about executing an order with a certain amount of finesse, using only your words, rather than resorting to meddling with their memory."

In an inhuman blur of movements, she touched up her make-up, dabbing on blush and swiping her long eyelashes with mascara. I was fascinated as I watched her face in the mirror. She looked like one of those make-up tutorials being played in double time. Except for her, the starting point was already so much prettier than I could ever achieve.

Across the room, Aslo smirked as he sprawled on the corner sofa, funnelling ready salted crisps into his mouth. "How is it going with that artist, Olivia? Has he even noticed you yet?" he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm and an accent I'd found out was old Scandinavian.

Olivia gave a dismissive sniff as she checked herself out in the mirror. "Not yet, but he will," she finished before flitting from the living room with her head held high. I'd mistaken her confidence for arrogance, a narcissism born from her beauty, but now I saw it for what it actually was: confidence in her skills as a Watcher.

I turned towards Atticus where he sat on the new sofa beside me. It was just as plush as their other one, with thick, dove grey cushions and an expensive weave, but somehow it had been saved from Aslo's crisp crumbs.

"Why does he have to notice her?" I asked. Ever since the incident involving Nightmare, and the subsequent conversation, I'd slowly gotten to know the other two Watchers. As I did, I'd asked a hundred or more questions just like this one.

As always, Atticus answered while Aslo turned his attention back to the TV and tossed the empty crisp packet onto the floor with the others.

"Sometimes our orders are big and other times they're something small, like painting a masterpiece."

It seemed silly to send a Watcher to instigate something so creative. "So just tell him to paint?" I said as if I was stating the obvious.

Atticus' lips lifted into a knowing smile. "It's not that easy. That kind of art needs more than talent. It needs a muse, an emotion."

Olivia flashed back into the room with a cream, floppy blouse and tan, suede skirt that made her toned legs seemed even longer than before. Neither would do anything against the winter cold outside or leave much to the imagination.

"Humans do some of their best work when they're in love. Whether that's with an idea or a person," she said as she pulled on a pair of boots with heels high enough to close the four-inch height difference between us. Her outfit was perfectly calculated to show off her assets.

"You're going to make him fall in love with you just so he'll paint a picture?" I asked, casting a glance at Aslo and Atticus for some confirmation that her actions were as extreme as I thought; neither of them reacted.

Olivia propped her hand on her slim hip for a moment as she paused in thought. "I suppose I could find a human he might like."

"Or you could take something from him," Aslo added while his attention stayed fixed to the TV screen, his fingers playing with a small, silver lighter. "I find humans get very passionate when they're miserable. It worked for me with Edvard Munch."

I frowned at what I was hearing. "Or you could just leave him alone and let him paint what he wants when he wants?"

Olivia's green eyes flashed to me and her curls bounced as her head took on a puzzled tilt. "But the book says..."

"So just ignore it," I offered.

An abrupt silence followed. I looked at each of the Watchers as they gawped at me. They were each a living statue, each one caught in a different emotive pose. Olivia's was easiest to decipher. Her livid green eyes were as sharp as the limes they shared their shade with and narrowed into a glare that could stop even the bravest person in their tracks.

Aslo had the same expression he always had whenever I questioned their Watcher ways. At first, I'd mistaken it for smugness, or an arrogant smirk, but I soon realised it was detached amusement. The kind a new uncle might have while he watches his sibling try to console a screaming niece or nephew. He knew what was coming and he was looking forward to seeing it play out. His grey eyes were crinkled while his lips mashed into a suppressed grin.

Atticus looked at me, as he often did whenever I asked my questions in front of Olivia and Aslo. It was a smile of support, but I could see the apprehension in the way he braced himself with his arms resting on his knees, and his eyes flicked between Olivia and myself.

He was the first to break the silence. "The orders, the books. They're the point of our existence, Anna. Without them we have no purpose. To ignore an order is a breach of obedience."

"Maybe you don't need a purpose. Maybe we don't need you going round making things happen. Maybe we'd be just fine without all the meddling."

Olivia gasped in outrage. "Without us your world would end. The balance would be broken, and you'd be cannon fodder for the war," she hissed and for a second I saw Medusa in her place: her green eyes glowing with rage and her curls morphing into writhing snakes. I fought the instinct to shrink into the sofa as she glared.

Aslo's lighter clinked over the drone of the TV as he flicked it back and forth. "Easy, Liv," he murmured.

Her head snapped towards him. "No Aslo. I haven't existed for centuries, playing my part to keep the dark at bay, for a mortal to tell me it's all been worthless."

Her usually blank expression was now shattered and in its place was a scowl so filled with rage I expected her manicured red nails to extend into claws at any moment.

Aslo's eyes dragged from the TV screen, and I felt Atticus' hand gently rest against my calf where I sat with my legs curled up on the sofa.

I didn't know what I had started but Aslo's expression, usually passive and apathetic, now had an edge to it.

"Keeping the dark at bay?" he asked darkly. "You think we haven't noticed your lot pushing the scales? Thinking no one would notice?"

"Maybe the human's right," Olivia scoffed, throwing her hands in the air as she became more animated. "Maybe we should just let it all fall. At least then we'd finally have an answer. We'd finally know which side was stronger."

Aslo stood in a flash, looming over Olivia. He wasn't as tall as Atticus but what he lacked in height he made up for in bulk. Compared to him, Olivia looked like a child.

"You sound like a purist, like one of those Order of Chaos fanatics," he said in a gruff voice. A Viking dragged through time to face off with a porcelain doll.

Olivia's head tilted in deviance, staring Aslo down despite her small stature. "And what of it. Maybe I'm starting to see their way of thinking."

Atticus' brow furrowed at the words. "You can't really believe that?"

"Why not? Aren't you tired of all of it? The constant back and forth. The endless waiting," she said as her gaze flashed between Aslo and Atticus. "You out of all of us should understand, Atticus. You've been in your vessel even longer than Aslo and I."

"We're Watchers," Atticus said calmly. "It's not our place to decide, only to act on the decisions made." He finished in a flat voice, like a corporate drone reciting the company rhetoric.

Olivia's eyebrow raised with a devious quirk. "Perhaps, but if enough of us think it the Council will have to act. We all know an order can be followed with a degree of interpretation. Aslo is evidence of that."

Atticus tensed on the sofa beside me before rising to join the standoff in the centre of the room. "Thoughts like that will find you in front of the Council, Olivia," he said in a low authoritative voice. "And acting on them is a book burnable offence."

Olivia's mouth gaped for a moment before she slammed it shut, her chest heaving with a deep sigh. She didn't say another word as she grabbed her leather bag from the kitchen counter and stormed out of the living room and down the stairs. Their front door slammed with a resounding bang that echoed through the whole house.

Aslo flopped back onto the corner sofa with a sigh. "She didn't mean it, Atticus. Not really."

"I'm not so sure, Aslo. You and I both know the Watchers are restless," Atticus said as he looked to the living room door, like he was willing Olivia to come back and retract what she'd said.

"Perhaps," Aslo breathed, his thumb returning to flick the lighter on and off, "but orders are few and far between, and those that do come seem so insignificant. Wasn't it better when there were wars to wage and discoveries to be made? When there was more sway in the world?"

Atticus cast him a tight smile and ran a hand through his hair. "You say sway, I say risk."

Aslo smirked, snapping the lighter shut. "That's the problem with those of you pledged to the light. You can be so cautious."

Atticus joined me back on the sofa, his hand returning to my calf with a squeeze of reassurance. "I've known plenty of Darksiders who have been equally cautious."

"They're doing it wrong then," Aslo countered with a grin and a wink. He returned his attention to the TV; his demeanour resetting as if the argument had never happened.

I wondered if it was common in their world, in the same way we debated politics or ethical dilemmas. Were the light and dark in the Watcher world no different to conservative and labour, republican and democrat? Olivia, Aslo and Atticus had clearly existed together for longer than any lifetime —it was clear in the way they acted with each other— surely that couldn't have happened if the light and dark were at each other's throats?

Atticus' thumb traced an arc on the swell of my calf, a warm caress present, even through the thick fabric of my jeans. Ever since my Nightmare nightmare, we had fallen into some strange no-man's land. I didn't shrink away from his touches, but I couldn't bring myself to seek them out either. And more than that, as much as I enjoyed the comfort I found in the unusual warmth of his touch, I was constantly on edge. Not out of fear but something else entirely.

I could feel it now, emanating from the hot touch of his palm sinking through the denim and building with every pass his thumb made over my calf. It was a tingle, a fizz of anticipation, intensifying at every touch, until I was aware of every inch of my skin.

I cleared my throat and shifted, folding my leg under myself and away from his tempting touch. He glanced towards me at the sudden movement.

"So, you're like super old..."

Aslo snorted from his bubble on the sofa, while a smile stretched across Atticus' face at my flippant tone. His white teeth gleamed as bright as the twinkle in his eyes.

"In the chronological sense, yes."

"How old?"

"Old enough to see the fall of Rome."

"You mean, old enough to cause it," Aslo chipped in; his eyes never leaving the spandex-clad wrestlers on screen.

My eyes widened. "Jesus."

Atticus chuckled, a breathy sound that made me think of lips whispering against skin. "Not quite old enough to meet him though, hypothetically."

"Ew."

"What do you mean ew?" he laughed.

"You're ancient and you're hanging around with people like a hundredth of your age, and shouldn't you be all, you know, wrinkly and shit?"

"We don't age, or we can't. As for being ancient... I don't feel that old."

I scoffed. "If this is one of those mind over matter things, I'm sorry but you can't just be whatever age you want."

"No, what I mean is that I don't remember much from the years before. Maybe because I didn't pay enough attention. I don't know..." He paused, glancing to the ceiling in thought. The movement accentuated his chiselled jaw. "Maybe memories can only last so long before they fade out of existence."

"Is that where your name came from? Ancient Rome?"

"Yes and no. Atticus is my given name, but Crowe is the Watcher line I come from. In the same way Starling is Olivia's and Finch is Aslo's. When my book ends, another Watcher from the line of Crowe will begin."

"Why do I get the feeling I could spend a lifetime learning about you guys and still not know everything?"

"Well, as someone once told me, where's the fun in knowing everything?" he said with an enigmatic smile so bright I could feel my own mimic it, like a mirror reflecting sunlight.

"That's very true," I said with a grin. "I'd hold onto that person, they clearly know their shit." I finished with a playful wink.

"Yes, she does."

His eyes met mine and a beat of silence passed between us. In its wake I felt a warmth building in the pit of my stomach. There was something about seeing him lounging on the sofa in front of me: his head propped against his hand causing his bicep to swell against his t-shirt; his broad chest and shoulders filling the breadth of the sofa like some Greek god carved in stone. It was an innocuous pose, but I couldn't stop my body flushing at the sight.

My phone vibrated beside me. The first notes of my alarm trilled over the burly shouting coming from Aslo's show, breaking the silence that had fallen between us.

"I've got to go. I promised Kelly I'd help out. It's always mad on Bonfire night," I babbled and heaved myself off the sofa. For the first time, I felt the pangs of disappointment that so many others felt at the prospect of going to work. I had always craved the distraction but after a week of experiencing the semblance of a social life — albeit with a supernatural race — I didn't relish an afternoon of serving coffee and beer.

I shrugged my thick winter coat on and wrapped a woollen scarf around my neck. The soft, mauve fibres tickled the sensitive skin on my lips as I pulled my dark hair free.

I said my goodbyes to Aslo, not that he noticed, and made my way down the stairs. Atticus followed close behind. When we reached the bottom, the wide hallway felt unusually narrow. A fact which wasn't helped by the way Atticus seemed to fill the space behind me. The only light came from the single windowpane above the door and somehow made the shadows seem even darker.

Atticus' 6 foot two stature towered over me as we stood facing each other in the dim space.

"So, I'll see you later?" I asked as my hand rested against the cool metal latch.

His eyes twinkled as a smile split across his face. Even in the dark I could see how his face lit up. "Sure, I'll break out my zimmerframe and come by the bar."

My snicker bounced off the old walls. "Fuck me, did you just make a joke Mr Crowe?"

"It's been known to happen," he replied with a suppressed grin.

I saw his eyes scan over my face, flicking from the creased corners of my eyes to my round cheeks —made all the more prominent by my smile— and lingering on the swell of my lower lip.

My throat felt dry when I saw him watching me. It was a look I'd seen a thousand times before, an attentive gaze of intent eyes and a subtle smile quirking the corner of his lips. Yet now, the way his dark eyes watched me made my heart thud in my chest. Maybe it was the darkness, maybe the closeness, or maybe it was the shift that had started on Halloween. The beginnings of a landslide that was sending me careening towards something unknown. Something exciting and dangerous and inevitable.

I cleared my throat as I tried to control my racing thoughts.

"OK then... So, bye."

Abruptly, I wrenched the door open and let the daylight spill into the hall. Like breaking an airlock on a vacuum, I felt the tension between us get sucked out into the open air outside and I followed it.

I closed the door behind me with a thud and took a deep breath of cold, winter air. It stung in my chest but at least it distracted me from the tingle running over my skin.

A shaky breath billowed into the air, calming the giddy flutter in my chest. My hands ran through my hair and with them I imagined how it would feel to run them through Atticus' dark strands.

Pull your shit together!

I pulled my lower lip between my teeth as I shoved my hands in my pockets and started the walk to work.

Of all the shifts I'd worked, I had a feeling this one would feel the longest.