I was frozen in place, sitting sideways, jaw agape... and so was Zabdi, but I doubted it was for the same reason. It was then that I realized what he meant when he commented on the smell. I was too distracted to notice it... the gasoline.

And the candle melting into it.

One moment it was silent, and in the next I heard again, the sound of fire. The sound of fire was like angry wind, whipping and scarring and burning the air. I felt the heat of a million atoms barreling and rearranging themselves, reacting to each other, all out of control.

The hair on my arms were singed as I scrambled up on my shaky knees. "Zabdi!" I screamed, standing up against the fire consuming my shoes. "Put it out!"

He was frozen amidst the inferno.

I knew too well the beat of Zabdi's heart. It was identical to mine when I realized I made more than one mistake on an exam, when I found that I talked to someone I wasn't supposed to, when I sneaked into my father's closet to wear a purple scarf. It was panic.

I ran the small distance between him and me, the night blazing orange and red. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard a siren roar, but maybe it was just my imagination. The stilts didn't have the luxury of fire trucks or people who cared.

"Zabdi." I forced his head to face me, and I grabbed his clammy hand. The heat surrounding us was scorching my clothes and I thanked whatever supreme being decided I shouldn't feel pain. But I could feel the flames, nonetheless. "Zabdi, look at me."

He swallowed, tears filling the rims of his eyes. From smoke or fear, I didn't know, but all I knew was he needed to get us out. The fire had already blocked our entrance. The gas-soaked wood was already falling apart. It was all I could do not to scream despite the intense fear I could feel shaking my bones. The floorboards beneath my feet were sure to buckle.

The air finding its way into my lungs was almost acidic. My eyes were watering against the smoke, trying to clear a path for me, but soon enough we were engulfed in the inferno in full.

I looked back to see his body and I wished I hadn't. Raza was in flames, and I could smell his flesh. It was jarring seeing someone who used to make chills run down my spine... Burning.

I knew we wouldn't be next... I was sure I would survive. If Onus could survive anything, it was death. But if they found out we stayed alive in this hell, we wouldn't be alive much longer.

Much more, I knew it wouldn't hurt me, but it would hurt Zabdi.

I grabbed his hand and squeezed. He needed to be pushed out of the shocked stupor he'd landed in. "Zabdi, please." I said through clenched teeth and started tugging him towards the blazing exit, but he was stiff and fully planted on the disintegrating floorboards.

The lump rose up my throat as I realized how many houses the house was going to burn itself with. How many of my people would be homeless now? Zabdi had to put it out.

"Zabdi." I could see him flinch as the fire blazed behind him, scorching his jacket. "Zabdi!" I begged, but it was like screaming through water. He couldn't hear me.

My arms found their way around his body as I tried to shield him from the flames. I didn't care if I got burned, I couldn't feel a thing. All I could do was keep his pain low before his screams would certainly pierce the night.

"Diwata..." He whispered as I felt the flames singe my scarf, his concern finally breaking through his shock.

"Don't worry. I can't feel it. Just tell me where it hurts, and I'll cover. The flames will die down soon." I said without any certainty. He wasn't moving still and all I could do was shield him as I shielded Ly's body six years ago. I wasn't going to leave him; if the smoke didn't kill him, the government would.

"Did I-" His eyes were burning pools of tears, yet to fall.

My heart broke when I understood what he meant.

"No." I said firmly. "This was the candle, Zabdi." I said, reassuring him of the innocence he doubted.

"She is burning." He said as his memories flashed in my mind. His mother gleaming like a chandelier above her bed, swallowed by flames. "I killed-"

I couldn't stop the tear from falling. I don't think he felt the flames, but I felt his pain. It was immense, like a wave of lava, burning over him in a tsunami of guilt. "No." I pressed my ear into his chest, willing, against my lack of ability, for his heart to calm down. I cursed myself for bringing him. The agony in his mind almost overtook my own.

For someone who commanded fire, fire surely commanded him.

There was only one way I knew to keep him in reality.

The numbers game I played with Ly under tons of rubble, the count-off that helped me survive the ice, the war... "One. The fire is warm." I said, stroking his hair, making sure the back of his head wasn't burned. The heat tickled my hands, but I didn't feel the jolt I thought I would.

"Two. The silk of the scarf you got for me is smooth." I said, leaning into him closer, making him acknowledge me. I felt his hand come up to my back to trace it, and I sighed.

"Three..." I looked up to see his eyes, overflowing with tears, look into mine for forgiveness I was in no place to give. "This isn't your fault."

His eyes left me and looked around the room as if seeing the flames for the very first time. "I did this." He stated, but his eyes questioned.

"No." I reassured him, shaking my head.

"The fire-" He repeated, and I wondered how many times he was told that.

"The fire is not your fault." I said, tipping his chin for his eyes to look straight into mine. My eyesight was dimming. The smoke was getting to me, but I held him. "The fire then and the fire now... not your fault."

"But-"

"THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT." I said firmly despite my own tears, pulling his forehead down to my own. This is my fault.

With my hand on his nape, I saw his flashes of his heartache... and slowly, I pulled it away. I had no idea what I was doing, but I kept the images of his memories in his head and blurred them with what felt like translucent paint. Slowly and surely, I numbed his visions.

What he once saw vividly as if they were playing right in front of his eyes, I pushed back into the recesses they were supposed to rot in.

Some hurts weren't slaves to the passage of years; they remained fresh wounds that bled at the slightest touch, but for him I made the cuts scab over. I was taking away his pain by playing the role of time.

"This is not your fault." I repeated, pushing his memory back, now less real. His anguish then was now little more than a figment of his imagination. But I didn't take it away completely... even though I knew that I could.

Memories were still necessary, no matter how unendurable they were. He needed to remember his past in order for him to realize he'd survived it.

I felt his heart slow down, his arms coming around my shoulders, his whole body slumping as his anxiety left just as quickly as it came. He hid his head at the crook of my neck, and I felt the moisture from his eyes there. "Thank you." He whispered.

And one instant, the night was cold again, silent again, save for his silenced sobs.

×+×

Zabdi was in no condition to drive. With his half-burnt wig, he barely managed to keep one foot in front of the other. His legs and mine looked like uncooked barbecue as the tissue started healing itself. Despite his hollowness, he still managed to worry about the red markings on my hand left by the silver dust on Raza. They soon disappeared.

"That wasn't supposed to heal that fast." He whispered, after I found a runner and handed it a wad of cash for speed and silence.

"Upapa kept me in silver to suppress my abilities, I think." I leaned in. "I'm used to it." My body was so used to being poisoned; it didn't know it was supposed to die.

The runner flew over some buildings and the protests to get us back to the CST fast. I held on to Zabdi's arm as we retraced our steps back to the iron gate we exited from. He was still dazed, and so was I. But between the both of us, I still had sense.

I ducked and covered my way into my train car, hiding mere inches from being detected. I didn't know what they would think if they saw me like this. I looked horrible. I looked like I just committed a crime... Which I wasn't sure I didn't do.

Walking silently on melted shoes was near impossible, but Zabdi and I managed to get back behind closed doors.

The moment the lock clicked; I sank to the carpeted floor. What the hell just happened?

With my hands over my eyes, I tried my hardest not to panic. I held my breath to keep from wheezing. I just saw a man die and I almost burned with him... My sanity couldn't wrap itself around reality. I shook my head.

Kazimir... he seemed just as dead as before I fell into his tomb. And now Raza was gone too.

Jazzy came from my closet then and paused at its threshold. She sat there watching us, concern evident, but she understood I needed space.

"We'll find him." The conviction in Zabdi's voice felt out of place in his disheveled state. "I promise you, you'll see him again." He said with such confidence, I almost believed him.

"Someone knows." I whispered. I was going to die soon, and the throne was still empty of my brother.

"What?"

"Someone knows Kaz is alive... that Raza was Onus" I whispered through my fingers. Raza was Onus. They used silver on him.

It explained his eyes, how I swore they glowed. It explained his inhuman talents, and it explained why Natasha was willing to betray me for her child. She was pregnant with a crime.

"They'll get to Kaz before I do-"

"Maybe the spies in the House? The ones you told me work for Velez?"

"No." I said. "The one who works for Velez carries Raza's child."

"Maybe just another enemy?" He suggested. "You said they made a lot of those."

I shook my head. "There wasn't any struggle. The person who stabbed him... Raza knew. Trusted, even. I've never seen him with his back away from a wall unless he trusted you, or knew you weren't a threat." I bit my cheek, shaking my head, the spasms of my hand creeping into the rest of my body. "I should have kept him in the league."

"Why did you kick him out in the first place?" Pride. Vanity. I don't know.

I shrugged. "Everyone in the league is bound by information laws. If they were brought to testify, the country had the right to inject them with the serum, so they'd have to tell the truth." I said, regretting that day in the elevator. What was I thinking? "But if he was a private individual, the state didn't have that power. I just... wanted him to be able to keep my secrets and his own. Now he's-" I choked. "-and we can't find Kaz."

"It doesn't matter now." Zabdi said. "There are other ways."

"Even Onus can't find him, you said it yourself." He was wrong, though. Raza was like us, and he knew where my brother was, and now... he was dead. I'd set him out on an adventure that took his life, and I couldn't help but worry only for my own sake, for my own unwelcomed crown.

What did that say about me?

Zabdi stood up from his perch on my bed to sit next to me. "I think they did... Find him, that is, it's just that they don't return." He said, a look of sadness on his features. He probably lost friends too. "My people didn't kill him either. Papa would have told me, and I would have told you if he was a target."

I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. "God, I wish Upapa killed me." There it was again, the escapism I tried to stifle. I didn't fear death for the only reason that I feared life more.

"Don't say that."

"He would have had another heir. He would have trained him better to be better... to help." I said. "All I do is leave a trail of bodies and burning buildings no matter how hard I-"

"You've been an empress less than a month. I've seen you try, and you can do better, but given the circumstances, you're doing fine." Zabdi said, he chuckled ruefully. "And the first burning building was my fault, not yours."

I snorted.

"You've done a lot."

"And look how much of what I've done is damage." I hated myself. "You saw the protests!"

"You've already helped them... They don't know what you've done for them yet."

"I don't know what I'm doing either." And Raza was dead, because of me, because of me, because of me.

Zabdi draped an arm over my shoulders, and I slumped over, not realizing how little strength I had left in me. The tears started flowing silently without permission, cleansing the soot from my face.

"Why didn't he kill me?" I whispered through the snot. "He came so close so many times..."

"Shh..." Zabdi placed my head on his lap, his thumb massaging my forehead. "Don't think like that. This was not your fault."

Then why did it feel like it was? There was no one else to blame but me. "Upapa... he saw me using a purple swimsuit once for diving. I was meant to wear red." I sobbed. "He pulled my hair and pushed me into the water. He kept my face under for I don't know how long..." Why did he bother pulling me up? "Every time I tried talking back at him, he tied me to a chair and asked Ilyaas to whip my back until I passed out. One time, I was left in a coma." I woke up three days later. "I think he knew how unfit I was to even want the crown at all."

Zabdi sighed and pursed his lips, as if deciding on something. Then he took a deep breath in, held it, and spoke. "Papa blamed me for months for killing my mother." He said. "Every morning he would come to my room and remind me that he... forgave me for starting the fire. I told him he'd hung her, and he told my therapist that I was having hallucinations."

My heart ached on his behalf. How horrible it was to see how we were comforting each other with our nightmares.

"I was ready to be married off." I said. "I knew the council and the rest of the country hated my mother for looking different, so I took it up on myself to make up for her. I did everything right, but it didn't count, because I looked like her."

"You look beautiful."

"I look like the monster parents scare their children about." I whispered through a hoarse throat. "I thought I did another thing wrong when they told me Abbu and Kaz crashed in a runner. They were lying, I thought. Heirs don't go in the same runners, that's basic protocol, so if one gets shut down, the other is alive."

I sobbed silently, holding a hand over my mouth just as I did a thousand times before to avoid Upapa's wrath.

"I didn't even believe they were gone." I whispered through a sob. I thought they were messing with me, but then they took the pictures down. Then I never saw them again.

He tugged away the curls that fell on my face. I wondered why I was opening my soul to a stranger, but he felt so much like myself, I was sure I knew him.

"Papa did the same thing to Amihan." He spoke softly about his sister. "She was so powerful, it scared him. She could make storms over mountains... they couldn't explain it. Storms only formed on the water, but she ravaged cities from volcano tops. Ami couldn't control it, though." He swallowed. "The floods killed hundreds. Papa experimented on her until she couldn't take it anymore." His voice broke.

I reached my hand up to his face, and I saw her face, her image burning in his mind.

Same eyes, same hair, same look of mischief. She must have been less than ten when she stopped waking up. I felt his anger boiling underneath ice. "I will kill him for you." I promised.

"I would have killed him for you." Zabdi replied, only honesty in his eyes.

"Why didn't you?" He asked.

"I..." The truth was still a hard pill to swallow. "General Hori, she was the head of the air force, and when she was dying, she told me she was my father's closest friend. I knew that already, since Abbu would fly with her as co-pilot when I was very young. She was also the one who taught me how to fly in the force... but then she confessed."

"To what?"

"She was in the Pentagon League when Abbu died." I closed my eyes, feeling dizzy just thinking about it. "Upapa ordered her to shoot his runner down."

When I opened my eyes, I saw his nose flare. "And she did?" The disbelief he had was the same one I had the day I found out.

"She launched a missile at his runner while he was taking off." I said, shuddering. "The league doesn't question orders... but she questioned this one until the day she died."

"And what did you do?"

I blinked the tears away, remembering. "I sneaked into my grandfather's room with a letter-opener." I shook my head, my mouth feeling dry. My hands were as clammy, my heart as weary, as the night I stood over Upapa with every intention to end his life. "But I still couldn't kill someone who surrendered, and in his bed, with his white hair and his frail, old, body... he wasn't worth my conscience."

I sighed; I didn't realize how heavy it was until I said it out loud. "I ran away with Jazzy." I reached out to her fur, now so close as she snuck near me. "I told Ilyaas I wasn't coming back."

"But the king died."

I nodded. Just four words, I found, could explain the end of my life.

"And you're empress now." He said it like a death sentence.

"And I can't find Kaz." He was the only one who could set me free. I raised the key into the light, the blood that used to gleam crimson, now nothing but brown gunk.

"When we find him... We'll need him." He said 'we' two times in the same sentence, but they were not synonyms. He wasn't asking for permission, even though he thought he was. It was a declaration, not a request.

My eyes found his and he knew that I knew.

"I need Kaz." He stiffened at my words, and I knew then that I'd given too much. The moment was gone.

Zabdi cleared his throat.

"That's from the body." Zabdi turned my hand over, the chrome sheen on the key catching the lamplights. "It's like the one for the motorcycle."

"Yeah..." I said, the puzzle pieces coming together, as I flipped the key in my hand.

"It's hidden in a motorcycle?" Zabdi asked. "There aren't that much in the country right? Maybe we can trace the one this belongs to-"

"Shit." We should have gone there immediately. Now I only had mere hours until the train left for East India.

I leaped from his lap and ran to the bathroom, washing my hands and my arms and the key.

"What?" Zabdi sat there perplexed, looking like a charred mannequin.

"Remember the motor oil?" I said, scooping water on to my face to get rid of the soot and ash.

"The smell... at training?" It was a scent the tunnels always had since the city of Lesya. It was in Kyrgyzstan; it was in Turkmenistan... I was sure it was here too.

"It was Raza's!" I exclaimed.

"So?"

"The motorcycle is in the tunnels." I said, my face still wet from the sink.

"I'm not following." The smoke must have fogged up his brain.

"That's how he got around the country undetected." I almost yelped the words out. "Whatever he knew about Kaz... it's in the tunnels."

"How will we even find the bike?" He sounded uneager.

"You go one way; I'll go the other." It would have been better for him to stay in the room.

I convinced myself that I only thought that because of his current mental weakness, and not because I didn't want him and his Ravens to take my brother away. But as expected, a childhood incompetency would turn out to be crucial. I didn't know how to ride a bike.

I opened my closet and changed out of my burnt clothes. My hair was singed, but no one would notice much if it was in a bun. I pulled out a white shirt, and white sweatpants, willing myself to be as clean as possible so as not to turn looks.

"Change your clothes." I handed Zabdi a similar pair in Ilyaas's size. He wobbled into the bathroom to clean himself up.

"These are quite big for you..." He said behind the door.

"They're Ly's."

"Huh."

"We don't have time for this." There were larger things to be occupied about.

My knee was bouncing up and down while I tried calming myself. The weariness from Raza's murder only fueled me. He didn't die for nothing.

He died for the rightful emperor of Eurasia.

×+×

I could barely feel the floor as I ran towards the tunnel entrance from the train. A pair of feet behind me, lumbering uncoordinated was Zabdi, still searching for his bearings. I saw the expanse of the main floor of the CST was devoid of people and was guarded from every entrance and window.

I was close now. I could feel it.

But then I felt a hand tug on my arm, halting my progress.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" His baritone rung in my ear.

"Tell you what?!" I pulled my arm away from the over-dressed Theo. His hair was in tangles, his leg still in a cast, hidden under a few layers of coats. This was New India, what was he thinking?

"Don't play dumb, you-" He leaned into me, mere inches from my nose.

Zabdi stepped in between us, for once, acting like a knight. He kept his hands at his sides, making sure if anyone threw a punch, Theo would be the first, and anything he did would be construed as self-defense. I could handle myself, but I appreciated it.

Theo simply ignored him. "I'm leaving." That explained the parka.

"Good." I said. "Take your spies with you." I spat in his direction, turning away, not caring for an explanation.

"Unfortunately, you can't take yours anywhere, can you?" He spat back. "Well, I guess in an urn, maybe?"

I stopped. I kept my expression neutral, even though I screamed in my head. He already knew. Why was I always a step behind?

My tone was even, my voice low my intent and willingness were clear. "Leave before I kill you."

He smirked. "As opposed to leaving after you kill me?" He licked his lips, lubricating it with venom. "How many, exactly, have you killed?"

I turned to him, giving him the entirety of the intensity of my royal Eurasian eyes. Theo forgot that he was standing on the land of the country of the empire I solely owned. "I'm not sure, but I can always add one more."

With my back to him, I whispered. "Leave."

Zabdi glared at Theo with an intensity I was sure I shared. But I walked away, knowing even Theo was nothing.

I fully accepted the possibility of my crucifixion for the needless deaths I've caused, but not before I made amends to the highest degree of my ability; and the greatest act of repentance I could muster was giving Eurasia its rightful emperor.

When my feet reached the main floor, I was flying. Behind a wall to a common bathroom on the ground level was the entrance to the bunker tunnel. I simply needed to apply pressure at the exact same spot my ancestors did that day the sirens blared for the impending nuclear attack.

Just like all the others, it was a dingy three-hundred-year-old elevator run on solar panels someone had forgotten. Getting in the metal box was always a gamble, but I was unbelievably lucky.

Zabdi came into the elevator with me, our collective weight causing creaks and crunches that threatened to leave us dismembered a hundred meters down. But we were Onus, and maybe that wasn't an issue.

I noticed the haze slowly fade from his eyes as the gravity of the situation dawned on him.

I saw the buttons on the panel as I ran my hands over them lightly. The button pointing up was clean from clicks, the button down was caked in dust. Raza was here, maybe mere hours before his murder but he didn't return. I assumed his bike was close by.

The elevator let loose its cables and went rapidly down. The contents of my stomach rose up to my throat just as it usually did when I got into the tunnels, and across the room, Zabdi looked like food was surely to come from both ends.

"This one's fast!" He said.

"Oh, you've noticed?" I said sarcastically, masking how much the night had changed me, the apprehension and excitement and grief.

"I'm rubbing off on you, Diwata." He smiled in a way I knew wasn't like him. "I don't like sharing the spotlight."

"You assume it was ever on you?"

His smile grew brighter. It was good to see that. It made my heart grow a bit lighter.

I couldn't help but sigh. I wondered when the next time I'd see that same smile would be. The weight on my chest, I attributed to the descent, but maybe it was something else I'd rather not recognize.

"Lizaveta" He whispered. It was the first time he ever said my name and it sent a chill down my spine. The fear of him knowing what I didn't want to know assaulted my senses, assaulted the beat in my chest. I braced myself against his incoming words.

"We don't have to do this... right now." The hesitation in his voice, in his eyes, showed me how he was only stalling. He was doing exactly what I wished he wouldn't do, if only for the avoidance of false hope, if only to rip the band-aid off.

But for what? I asked, he needed Kaz almost just as much as I did, but I knew the answer.

"The Ravens can find him." He said, suggesting another impossible way, in words that would have been lies had they not been half-truths.

"I can find him." I wished.

"You don't need-"

"Yes, I do."

He sucked in the musty air, avoiding eye contact. Something's changed in him, and I wondered if it was the same change in me. But truly, we were too alike to give that small, immense, shift any acknowledgement.

He snorted, finding the questions I wanted him to ask. "Are you this afraid of ruling?"

I shot him a look, his words piercing me much deeper than I thought they would. "I'm not afraid of ruling, I'm afraid of doing it wrong." It was all true, I thought, but it felt like it left my lips as dishonesties. He wasn't the only one saying half-truths tonight.

"And you think your brother will do it right?" He asked, apprehension evident in his furrowed brows. "You haven't seen him in six years. You don't know what you want."

He hit a nerve by saying that. Why did men always think they knew what I wanted?

"And you do?" I turned on him. "What if this was your sister?"

"I'd look for her." He admitted, his following words trapped in his throat in hesitation. I almost curled in on myself, awaiting them, wanting them... to rip the damned band aid off. "But not so she could save me."

I blinked. If I was less of myself, that would have hurt me more. But knowing how much ammunition I had against him, his pebbles simply bounced off my armor. There was no point in fighting an unfair fight, a fight I knew I'd win, regardless.

"You don't get to say that to me." I said, drawing a line, all vulnerability exposed just moments ago, folding back into my body. He was making our nearing parting easier. "My entire existence, no one has saved me. This is me saving myself."

Zabdi was right in every sense of the word, but right then I wasn't sure I wanted the truth. I wanted support, I wanted kindness... I wanted Ly. I needed Zabdi to hurt me so it would hurt less when it came my turn to hurt him.

He must have noticed my face falling, even though I tried hard to cover it. "I'm-"

"Don't say sorry." I said, ice leaking into each word, my eyes avoiding his, knowing we were hurting each other now to armor ourselves from the pain that would come when the choice arrived.

I didn't formulate the thought; I didn't let myself. We had choices to make, and each other's names were not one of the options.

No. I sighed out the dust in my nose. The end of our line was coming, and both he and I knew what each other's choice was without asking.

Hating him was better than the prospect of missing him.

"Have courage for own your insults, otherwise I'd assume you didn't have a spine."

He snorted, mirroring me perfectly. "Don't treat me like your reflection. Not all people are as weak."

I smirked. Good.

Zabdi didn't believe that, and I saw enough of it in his eyes. I wasn't under any illusion about our common interest as of the moment. It would have been much easier had I not seen his life through his eyes.

How then was I supposed to forget him? How then was I supposed to see him as an enemy? After knowing where Kaz was, he would be with the Ravens, and I would be with Eurasia. Zabdi knew it too.

The ride down was silent after that, me feeling the pressure increase as we descended into the consuming abyss of the tunnels.

The doors opened with a misplaced cheery ding and shoved us into a dimly lit darkness. Looking for the bike wasn't hard since it was right there, right next to the elevator, as if awaiting a master who would come no longer.

Zabdi took the key from my hands and turned it on.

No message popped up from it, no recording, no video, nothing. For a moment there I wondered if Raza just wanted me to take it to the carwash as his dying wish.

But reflected in Zabdi's eye was a pulsing dot from where the speedometer should have been.

"Nine klicks." I whispered to myself. I pointed to the direction the bike came from. "Kaz?"

Zabdi shook his head. "Finding him might have been possible for him, but extraction-"

"You say this like you know where he is."

His eyes snapped towards me. "I don't."

Zabdi placed himself over the bike, waiting for me to come over after him. What cruel torture.

I kept my hands behind me as I rode behind him, making sure not to touch his skin, lest I see and care more. Goodbye was coming soon.

The warm air whipped at my hair, Zabdi's coconut shampoo flying into my nostrils. How dare he give me so much to remember? I shook my head, getting rid of the cloudy thoughts.

"Are we close?"

"Yeah."

A small light was at where the dot glowed on the map. I could see it from two miles off. The darkness made it easier to see the light. Even from a far, I could make out the small pricking needle at the center of the smooth metal door.

I really should have known Raza was Onus. Why did I believe he simply had gallons of my blood to lug around opening doors like these?

When Zabdi said the needles only let the Onus in, it was a mere confirmation of my suspicions. I just didn't want to believe my existence was a crime. I didn't want to believe that the whole history of Eurasia was a lie.

But here we were.

He parked the bike right next to the wall and let me prick my own finger. The door let in a small whooshing sound and retracted into the wall. Behind the dust the door picked up, I finally saw where Raza worked.

Zabdi stepped in after me and gasped in awe at the large expanse of moving surveillance images that I assumed covered the rooms of every important person in the continent and beyond. I saw PM Crawford drinking tea, I saw the bald MP awake without a purpose, I saw Akim on the train mulling over a schedule late into the night.

Raza knew everything because he was everywhere all the time at the same time. He was practically playing God; omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.

When I stepped into the cold room of screens as walls, I half expected a figure of Raza to come out and say, "If you're watching, this, that means I'm dead." but I got none of that.

Instead, I got a large satellite image of long gloved fingers from a purple coat above a snow, fiddling with a remote with a time stamp of 2:33 PM.

I saw three white concentric circles on a field of grass and volcanic stones, white figures moving around them like ants with a time stamp ticking the current time of 12:08 AM.

I saw the familiar and eerie video of my grandfather's runner disintegrating into a million pieces with a time stamp of 2:35 PM.

That was when I fell on to the floor, voiceless in my gasp, as silent tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Diwata?"

I was no longer myself. My consciousness was not with my body, and I could see myself as if I was a bystander. My body was crushed on the floor, screaming in mute, with Zabdi reaching out to me to help, not knowing how, not knowing why.

Musk. Bergamot. Black currant.

The boy with dark skin, dark cropped hair, and amber eyes told me the king was dead a minute before he died.