Out of all the things Emilia did and didn’t know about Conrad, a few things were clear.

One: Conrad wasn’t his real name. The man’s handwriting, little as Emilia had seen, had been shockingly perfect—the kind of perfect that made her suspect he was from a Free Colony, where writing was often common place. It was taught, more out of tradition than practical use, to Baalphorian students, but was so rarely used that her own writing was barely legible.

People from the Free Colonies had almost always seemed to have much better handwriting. Charles and James’ had been sweeping and dramatic, giant flourishes marking their letters. For the Blood Rain General and the young non-dev he had sent to them during the war, their writing was fluid and graceful, although usually only they could read it, something about the difference in their native language’s writing making the transition into Baalphorian difficult. Ri’s writing had been perfect, with square little letters lined up uniformly on the page—

Actually, Ri’s writing had been a little disturbing. He had been a prolific writer, making notes and journaling, as well as sending mysterious letters off to the one sibling he liked and a friend. The man had rarely given details about either, but Emilia wasn’t stupid, and his so-called friend had clearly been more than a friend.

That was beside the point, however. What was the point was the way the authoritarian government of the man’s home had obviously demanded the strictest skill in handwriting from its citizens. Emilia could still picture the man’s letters, written in both Baalphorian—for his personal practice—and his native tongue—High Falronian, although she’d seen him write and speak in the more common tongue as well. Despite the varied word length and spacing, every line had been even, running one margin to the other perfectly. It was a skill, on that served as a disturbing reminder of the regime Ri had grown up under.

Conrad’s writing reminded her a bit of all that. It was perfect, precise, but there was a flow to it that hadn’t existed in Ri’s, and the occasional flourish was nowhere near as extravagant as James or Charles’.

That led Emilia to point two: he was almost certainly from the Free Colonies, which lead to three: he had probably learned to use his core in the real world. It was possible he’d extended that training through blackaether raids, but Emilia was willing to bet he’d at least learned the basics in his real body.

Emilia glanced behind her as she tugged the last straps of her {Blood Armour} in place. Gale was examining several of her blood weapons—the ones Emilia had gone over the basics of with the older children, in case they needed to raid her body at some point. Conrad didn’t seem interested in anything. He’d picked up one of the other blood items scattered through the room, a small figurine shaped like a monster of some sort, and pocketed it. Now, he was leaning lazily against a wall, staring in her general direction.

He wasn’t really staring at her, though. Well, he was, but not in the creepy, stalker way she would have expected. After two minutes of stripping down and awkwardly pulling on her {Blood Armour}—although it could contract down to a bracelet form, for easier removal, the Risen Guard hadn’t been keen to let her shift it, and both getting it off and now on while it was still in clothing form was difficult—Emilia had been able to add another piece to the puzzle of the man: he probably wasn’t into her, and possibly not into women at all.

It wasn’t that she thought she was so beautiful, no man could resist her! Nothing like that! But she had always been a people watcher and knew that most people… had problems keeping their eyes to themselves. Even if they almost immediately realized the person wasn’t their type, nudity and revealing clothing called attention, and there was always that bare moment when they glanced and assessed. If they weren’t into it, they looked away. If the person was polite, they looked away even if they were, but nearly everyone had a tell: some small twitch of movement or expression or vibe that said, “I’d hit that.”

Conrad had never even looked. Entirely naked, he’d just absently stared in her direction. If he blinked and asked when she’d changed, she wouldn’t have been surprised. He could just be really polite, she supposed—she’d watched Charles die of embarrassment over Baalphoria’s revealing clothing for years, after all.

The point was, it was difficult to avoid looking, but Conrad was doing it like it was nothing. Ergo, probably not into women and definitely not into her. That was fine. Hopefully the lack of sexual attraction would make whatever obsession he had with her less sticky. He kept bringing up his brother, so maybe she’d somehow slid into being a pseudo-sister? Weird, but she could work with that.

Emilia pulled her clothing back over her {Blood Armour}, her energy reaching out to run down the length of Conrad’s web. He shuddered, his shoulder’s shaking and eyes flickering shut. When they opened again, he was watching her. Previously unfocused eyes locked onto her as his energy latched onto hers, dragging it along several particular webs towards Risen Guards wandering the compound, and—

⸂Emilia!⸃ a little voice called.

Emilia cursed as she turned and found Caro standing in the doorway. This! This was the nosy child the guards outside had been meant to keep out. Now, those men lay tucked into a corner, and when the child’s eyes found them they grew huge and fascinated.

Fucking stars above. Out of all the kids to run into, it had to be Caro: yet another child she was unlikely to be able to shake.

Caro, at the very least, was a useful and sneaky child, and when they pulled a bag out of stars knew where to stuff the extra blood items into, Emilia was unsurprised. Gale snatched it away, dumping everything that Emilia wasn't reattaching to her person or stuffing into her own bag into Caro’s. The child tried to take it back, but Gale wasn’t stupid enough to lade the child down with weapons.

Either Conrad was that stupid, or he knew something they didn’t, because he handed Caro one of the random blood items. Caro’s eyes lit up, and they snapped the hairpin into their hair, pulling their unruly, dirty blonde bangs out of their face. The aether rumbled with private conversation between Conrad and Caro, and Emilia hoped the man could tolerate kids: Caro was a talkative one.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

⸂We can’t leave these things with them,⸃ Gale muttered to Emilia as she shouldered the bag of blood weapons. She hadn’t even asked about why the teenager was intent to empty the room, but apparently the girl wanted to explain—not that she had to. Emilia understood how little Gale trusted the organization—how much she wasn’t willing to leave dangerous weapons in their hands.

It was probably a good thing Gale hadn’t been there when she handed over the {Blood Hoop} to Boundary. At the very least, that wasn’t being stored here. Hopefully, it had been put somewhere safe—or better yet, maybe Boundary had kept it. Then again, as much as she trusted him more than most of the Risen Guard, that didn’t erase the fact that there was another person residing within him—some corrupted being, created by the heartcores. One that hated visitors—or was maybe intent to follow Risen Guard directive to the extreme? They hadn’t actually discussed the specifics of his other half, unfortunately.

So… maybe, in hindsight, it wouldn’t be great if he still had it? Although, one person having access to what was definitely a weapon of mass destruction—even if she’d personally had no idea how to activate it—was better than the entire Risen Guard having access.

Oh well, too late to do anything about it now, not when they were once again following Conrad through the winding paths and staircases of the compound, Caro now in tow as well. Another child who Emilia was certain wouldn’t be dissuaded from coming with them, even if she tried.

Actually, the small child could probably be sent packing, but that seemed cruel. The Caro who had existed before Kelly had been attacked wouldn’t have been pushed off, but the Caro of now might. Leveraging their hurt and trauma over being the first to meet that man to make them stay wasn’t something Emilia could do. It would be like dragging a knife through a wound that had only just ceased oozing blood.

Hence, a third child to cart around. At least this child had the energy of a monster, never complaining about the number of stairs they were forced to go up and down and up and down. Even Emilia was complaining! Although scribbling out complaints and curses wasn’t the most satisfying complaining she’d ever done. Gale, on the other hand, had taken to glaring at Conrad’s back as they climbed, handing Astra over to him to carry after the second flight. Astra hadn’t been impressed, glaring up at the man, but she seemed perfectly inclined to inconvenience him over Emilia or Gale.

All things considered, they made it pretty far, before they faced their biggest problem getting out of the compound. According to a quick noted, jotted down by Conrad as she and Gale caught their breaths around climbing too many flights to count, they were almost to the place Conrad had entered from. Emilia had questioned the sensibility of exiting at the same place, but without any lead on another exit, this was the way they needed to go.

The Risen Guard compound occupied the entirety of a city floor. They had been confined to a single building during their stay, and much as Emilia had suspected while inside it, the structure was huge. Exiting the building via what appeared to be an emergency exit and erupting onto a clattering metal landing, Emilia took in the city. As with all internal cities, the ceiling above was covered in circles of light eating material, the covers of these ones open and plunging the world into dark.

Inside, there had been no windows, and instead Lanaira and other Risen Guards had informed them of when it was time to turn off the lights. Smaller versions of the light eating holes marked most ceilings, opening with the touch of energy to an array—some inside, many more outside, the room in question. According to the timing of those bedtimes, this was their third day in the compound, although Emilia had already begun to question that—she used to joke her internal clock got all of her internal map’s potential. The fact that it was clearly night outside, while there were still many hours until lights out, more or less confirmed the fact that the Risen Guard had been fucking with their sense of time through their windowless rooms.

Given the way Gale growled into the aether, she had realized that as well. If there had been any hope of talking the girl into at least tolerating the Risen Guard before, it was gone now.

Down they went, following the zigzagging stairs from metal landing to metal landing. It was noisy, but Conrad had come up fine enough, so perhaps it was an excepted noise—perhaps the Risen Guards used it to change shift or sneak out for a smoke break. Not that Emilia had seen anyone in this world smoking.

The building was just as big as she’d expected, spanning blocks and blocks of space and reaching nearly to the ceiling. Below them, a collection of smaller homes dotted the level, light slipping out from behind curtains and blinds, but the majority was occupied by the main building. There were also, rather surprisingly, several courtyards with what appeared to be plants growing in them, lit up by glowing dots of light. Far away and nearly pitch black as it was, Emilia couldn’t be completely positive, but if they were covered in greenery, they would be the first plants she had seen inside a city level.

Emilia reached out, touching Conrad’s web again, letting him guide her along it to the closest people once more, before he let her go. Her energy wandered through his map, searching out the signatures of people she knew and cared for. A huge group of people were gathered near the infirmary—Honey, most likely, causing some sort of scene. Hopefully the trainee wouldn’t get in too much trouble. Even more hopefully, no one would realize she had been causing a commotion in order to give them a chance to escape.

Things should have gone smoothly from there on. There was no one nearby. No one wandering the night, out for air or on guard. Shapes were tucked quietly into the smaller houses, while the compound was filled with people living their out-of-time middle of the day. None of those shapes were running or sending sparks of their own energy searching through the world for her or the missing children.

Everything was fine, until suddenly, it wasn’t.

It took Emilia a half dozen steps to stop, her eyes and body having been idly staring ahead as she followed Conrad and wove her way through his energy. Despite the mental strain of seeing so much—or perhaps even because of it—it had been soothing in a way she wasn’t used to, and the suddenness of its disappearance—of Conrad’s disappearance—was more jarring than she would have expected.

She looked back, meeting the panicked eyes of Gale and curious expression of Caro as they looked around.

⸂Where did your friend go?⸃ the child asked, and Emilia let every curse she knew float through her head.

They had known this was a risk—had known that the Enclave that Conrad’s family had attached themselves to could call him back at any time. They should have prepared for them to steal him away, but they hadn’t. Now, they were alone with only the vaguest of idea where they were going.

“Fuck…” Emilia groaned to herself, turning back the way they’d been heading. They were close to the city wall, but nowhere near the gate. She had no idea if there was some hidden path they were headed to or whether Conrad had been planning to use the wall as an edge of safety as they went elsewhere—to the opposite side of the city for all Emilia knew.

Emilia glanced back the way they came. They couldn’t go back. Miira might have been kind enough to not tattle on them, but she doubted the girl would hide their failed escape if they returned. She didn’t trust them, and there was no place for them inside that compound anymore.

Forward it was then, even if forward was surging into a great big unknown.