It was safe to say that the public’s opinion of Albert had changed after the attack on Paris. Some people’s opinions had changed in a massively positive way. But it was either that or they now hated his guts.

Harvey, who had been leaning against the wall of his bedroom staring at his palm, quickly balled his fist as tight as he could.

He wanted to know what had happened. He couldn’t remember anything past the flames appearing on his blade as he screamed. The memory that came after that was him staring up at the ceiling as he was wheeled on a stretcher through the corridors of a hospital.

Nothing had been wrong with him, they quickly found out. The only people who would have known what had happened to him were Maltor, Albert, and potentially Cecilia.

After a swift conversation with the latter, Harvey discovered that Cecilia had been too far away to see what had happened to him. That meant he had to ask Albert.

He also wanted to know how Maltor had gotten away. That was one of the reasons why the public’s opinion of Albert had shifted so drastically. He had let Maltor escape again.

But Harvey knew that Albert wouldn’t just let Maltor get away. Something had happened again.

They had been winning. What in Titan’s name had happened?

Harvey wondered whether it would be a sore subject with Albert. He never liked talking about Maltor escaping after it happened. He always swore that he would kill Maltor, and yet it seemed as though he just couldn’t.

In fact, Albert was so frustrated with what had happened at the beginning of that week that he hadn’t been seen by anybody other than Cecilia since everybody had returned. Would Harvey even be able to talk to him?

Harvey wondered for a moment what Albert’s main trouble was. It might not have been Maltor’s escape. Ali had died. There was a high chance that Albert was struggling with the consequential grief.

Ali hadn’t exactly been Harvey’s best friend, but the two had been close. Harvey remembered how happy and nice Ali had been. The time they had eaten in the café together with Albert and Isaac. His death had stung, and it hadn’t exactly been what Harvey had been hoping to hear first after waking up in a hospital.

Harvey had never really had to deal with death before. It was almost a new concept for him. But he wasn’t grieving. He was merely riding it out.

Something made his body freeze. From outside his room, Harvey heard a door slam shut.

Two things came to his mind. One: Cecilia wasn’t that violent. Two: Cecilia was already in her room.

It was Albert.

As though the Gods were trying to send him a message, Harvey had been given what seemed like the perfect chance to speak to Albert about the Paris fight.

He didn’t know whether it was right for him to, though. Albert clearly wanted to be left alone. Did Harvey really have the right to intrude?

***

I sank into the sofa of my living room, hoping it would provide some sort of comfort. It did not.

For some reason, this day had been the hardest out of all the days that had passed since the Paris fight.

Just yesterday, General Woodward had executed his plan to push towards Versailles. And from what I had heard, we were making good progress.

But the day just felt difficult. Ali was dead. He was never coming back. It was similar to how I had felt when Grandad died. I wanted to hear his voice again. I had taken him for granted. I had not realised what I had until it was gone.

And yet, no tear came to my eye. Not a single one.

Maybe one would have found its way out of my eye and down my cheek if it weren’t for the knock on my door at that moment. We’ll never know.

Expecting it to be Cecilia, I called, rather glumly, ‘Come in!’

I kinda hoped it was her. She had been a huge help in all of this. Even if I didn’t quite know how to talk about it, she would just wrap her arms around me wordlessly to let me know that it was all going to be okay.

No, I had not cried in front of her. I never would. Even if we got married. We could have been married for forty years and I would never let a tear out in front of her.

But it wasn’t Cecilia. It was my cousin.

‘You okay?’ he asked carefully, staring down at me on the sofa.

It was rather strange to hear his voice. The only voice I had heard besides my own since Monday had been Cecilia’s. And it was very safe to say that Harvey’s voice was drastically different from Cecilia’s.

‘Fine,’ I said quietly. ‘How come you’re here?’

‘I wanted to ask about a few things.’

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I wasn’t exactly in the mood, but I wouldn’t ever have it in me to turn down Harvey. So I had to deal with it.

‘‘A few things’, yeah?’ I continued, trying to sound a bit enthusiastic. ‘What’s the first?’

I heard Harvey shuffle his feet for a few moments. The silence was deafening. Then, he seemed to gather the courage to speak. And, by that, I mean that he blurted out his first question.

‘How did Maltor get away?’ he said so quickly that it sounded like one extraordinarily long word.

I didn’t answer for a moment. I almost didn’t want to. It hurt to remember him getting away. Every time.

It was unbelievably infuriating. I was stronger. By a fucking mile. And yet every single time I crossed paths with him, he escaped.

Could I really say I was stronger? Did our fights actually have a victor? He didn’t actually die at the end of any of our fights, so was it a victory?

By that logic, every single fight we had ever had was a draw. But it definitely didn’t feel that way. There was one that he won and plenty more that I had. So why did they actually never feel like victories?

‘Because he’s a slippery bastard,’ I snarled eventually. ‘Someone threw a grenade and he and Quinn disappeared in the dust that arose.’

‘Quinn?’ Harvey breathed. ‘The guy that betrayed you at Christmas, right?’

‘That’s him.’

‘He was there?’

I merely nodded.

Then I realised something. If Harvey didn’t know that Quinn had been there…had he blacked out when he had that display of rage? Could he not remember what happened then?

‘How much do you remember?’ I asked quietly, slightly intrigued.

Harvey didn’t speak for a moment, so I sat up to look him in the eye. He stared at me rather strangely. His expression suggested that I, at the very least, did not look my best.

‘It’s weird,’ he explained, in a mumbling sort of voice. ‘I can only remember up to the flames appearing on my blade. And I did a lot of screaming. But after that, my memory only picks up at the hospital.’

I stared at him silently. He didn’t know a thing. He had no clue what had happened to him.

‘I’m going to tell you what happened to you and you’re going to have to believe me,’ I said quietly. ‘Tell me you’re going to believe me.’

‘This is actually the other thing I wanted to ask about. I wanted to know how Maltor got away and what happened to me.’

‘Will you believe me?’ I repeated, with a bit more force.

Harvey’s brow furrowed slightly. ‘I’m going to have to. You and Maltor are the only two that know, right?’

‘Kinda. But it’s definitely out there in terms of weird things I’ve seen happen. And I’ve seen a lot.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll believe you.’

I sighed. ‘You had your blade to Maltor’s neck. Then the fire appeared as you screamed, but you know that. Then, it appears you don’t remember past that, right?’

He nodded again, so I continued.

‘It looked like some of your veins set on fire. Bright orange lines appeared on your wrists, temple, neck, and around your elbows. And your pupils got really small. Like ridiculously small. And those same fiery orange lines appeared in your irises.

‘Then Quinn appeared and ruined everything. We lost our grip on Maltor and he and Quinn tumbled off a few metres away. But you got up and went straight for them. Still with fiery veins, for the record. But right before you reached them, you collapsed. Then they got away. I’m not talking about that.’

I hadn’t really done it justice, but such a task was practically impossible. How could one even describe what had happened to Harvey?

‘And that’s weird to you?’ Harvey murmured.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Harvey paused again.

‘Not in a bad way,’ I reassured him. If I had been a bit more energised, my words would’ve been quicker and more desperate. ‘I just haven’t seen anything like it. Not weird in a bad way.’

‘No, that’s not it,’ Harvey breathed. ‘It’s just…if you don’t know what happened to me…then who does?’

‘You mean the fiery veins and the not knowing what happened after?’

He nodded. ‘You know everything about this world. Or at least everything there is to know.’

I sighed. ‘Harvey, there’s so much complexity in this world that anybody who would dare try to understand it all would go insane.’

He didn’t say a word. Clearly, he wanted to know the intricacies of what had happened. He didn’t want somebody to simply retell the story. He wanted to know exactly what had happened to him.

He wanted to know why his veins had gone orange. Why he couldn’t remember anything. Where the sudden burst of strength had come from.

‘I’m sorry, Harvey, but I don’t know why it happened. It might be something to do with the fact that we’re descended from Titan or something. But I genuinely don’t know. Nor do I know somebody that would.’

Harvey’s eyes widened.

‘What?’

‘You…You just gave me an idea,’ he breathed, so quiet I almost leaned closer.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think I know somebody that might know something about it.’

At first, I expected him to say that there was a really knowledgeable teacher at Apercaput. I was expecting him to request that we make our way there soon so that he could find out.

What he said really threw me for a loop.

‘The woman I live with. She’s bound to know something.’

If Ali hadn’t died a few days prior, my eyes would have widened.

‘What?’ I hissed quietly. ‘Why would she know anything?’

Harvey seemed to become rather uncomfortable all of a sudden. He began to shift from foot to foot and he stopped giving me eye contact.

‘Harvey…’

‘I just know she would,’ he said quickly. ‘You’ll see when you meet her.’

‘You seem to be pretty confident that I’ll take you to see her, then,’ I retorted, joking for the first time in nearly a week. It felt nice.

‘Albert, please,’ Harvey begged. ‘You’ll understand once you meet her.’

I was rather intrigued. Was this woman more important than I had originally believed? Was she more than just the woman who took care of Harvey?

Did she have a role in all of this?

‘Where does she live?’ I asked cautiously. I didn’t want to get his hopes up too high, but I wanted to at least see if this was possible.

‘Llangollen,’ Harvey replied quicker than the speed of sound itself. He wanted this.

My eyebrows would’ve shot up if I had the energy.

‘Isn’t that in Wales?’ I asked, feeling aghast. ‘You went to Apercaput in northern Scotland while living in Wales?’

‘It’s not too far from the England border,’ Harvey reasoned quietly. ‘But she lives in Llangollen, yes. If we go there I can show you where she lives. It’s a small enough town.’

‘What makes you think she’ll know anything about this, though, Harvey?’

‘Albert, you’ve got to trust me,’ he tried desperately. ‘Once you meet her, you’ll know exactly why I want the two of you to meet.’

What did he know?

‘I’ll trust you, Harvey,’ I said finally. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

His eyes lit up. ‘Thanks, man. I haven’t seen her in ages anyway. If she doesn’t know anything, you can make a new…friend…and I get to see her again.’

I thought about how I hadn’t seen Rob in ages. It would be nice to just sit and speak to him again. That’s probably what Harvey was feeling.

‘I hope she knows about it,’ I murmured. ‘It really is a bit of a stunner.’

‘Was it really that strange?’

‘It was like you had a power-up,’ I sighed, lying back down on the sofa and running my hand through my hair. ‘You became a God for a few seconds.’

‘A God?’

‘Well, not literally,’ I murmured. ‘But it sure looked like it. But we’ll see what this woman has to say.’

After a few seconds of silence, Harvey assured me, ‘Trust me, man, I know she’ll know something.’