“What!?” Finn said, his face contorting in a mixture of fear and anger.

“God is dead.” Cece said simply. “I’m right, aren’t I?” She asked staring towards Eibon. He gave a sympathetic look to Finn, before replying.

“Yes.” Eibon admitted. Finn’s eye twitched ever so slightly.

“You expect me to believe that my god, the source of my faith, is dead?”

“I don’t.” Cece said with finality. “I’m not personally invested in what you do or don’t believe. You’re god is dead and I won’t do anything to convince you of that.”

“Why do you think he’s dead?”

“Oh now you want to hear?” Cece laughed, still giddy from the existential revelation. “An angel isn’t an independent being. Therefore if they are all feral, that means they have no master.”

“I find it hard to believe they are all feral.”

“Have you ever seen one that wasn’t?”

“No, they’re all in Heaven.” He said defensively.

“What a convenient place for them to be. Unseen, unheard, immaterial.” A smile tugged the corner of her mouth.

“What about our faith? Where does it come from if God is dead?” He asked. Cece was familiar with it, the mysterious divine power that was un related to magic.

“I don’t know nearly enough about faith to know to tell you, instead I’ll ask you a question. Where does magic come from?”

“Magic? It’s just a part of the world.”

“Could faith not be the same?”

“No, only the chosen are able to wield it.”

“You’re right.” Eibon interrupted. “Unlike her though, I know where your faith comes from, but I doubt you would believe me. Look into how they choose priests, I think you should search for your own answer.”

“Perhaps I will.” Finn said after a long considering silence. Wordlessly Cece reached towards a shelf and grabbed another book.

“What say we get out of here, gentlemen?” Cece said. Once again the three found themselves in a memory. The same scene as last, but this time it was the just the girl, sitting underneath illusory waters. She sat on the ground, her knees brought up to her chest, and she stared at the ground. Muffled screams and the sounds of war could be heard from the distance.

Finn had no intention of telling the church about these people. He was an honest man, one who repaid his debts, and heretics or not, they saved his life. He took those kinds of things seriously. However if he had wanted to tell the church about his suspicious saviors, it would have died in that moment. He didn’t know what this woman wanted to achieve, didn’t know who had scorned her, but he could feel what she felt in that moment. Pure unbridled rage and a cold, unyielding will that would see the world dead before she accepted failure. If he spoke he would not live.

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Eibon could feel it too. The bloodlust nearly made him stutter, and reminded him of how he felt all those years ago. He often wondered how someone could modify their own mind so easily. Cece spoke of it like it was a mental exercise and not fundamentally changing who she was. Now he saw that she had ceased considering herself a human being that day. She was an instrument of death, and she would change in whatever ways necessary to kill.

Cece felt the emotion pointing her forward. A reminder of what she still needed to do. She grinned.

She knew where she needed to go, but now she needed to move the three of them towards it. A new memory came to her unbidden and she allowed it through. The scene slowly shifted again, and just as quickly as they left the Silva estate, they were riding on a stretch of road. Eibon had spied on her enough to know about her obsession with her car, but Finn was surprised by the beautiful machine. It was one of the more luxurious things he had ever seen and Eibon could see a spark of childlike joy at the sensation of the wind rushing through his hair.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why are we sitting in the back?” Eibon asked. In the passenger seat a golem sat, motionless and quiet.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lotte always get’s shotgun.” She laughed.

Cece awoke on the cold stone floor of the Iskarian ruin. A normal person would take time to gather themselves, but Cece treated her body and mind like a machine so she immediately got up and started observing the inscriptions used in the solar array. She had gotten enough of a look around to see most of them, but there were a few parts she hadn’t seen yet. She still didn’t understand the construction and she had no hope of doing so quickly, so for now she settled for just recording every piece of information so she could come back to it later. After a few minutes of walking around, she headed back through the underwater passage to where she left Eibon, finding him standing over Finn’s still unconscious body. He seemed battered, but in one piece.

“He has a concussion.” Eibon said, not looking up.

“I didn’t know you knew medicine.”

“You have to learn a lot about the human body to move it with magic.”

“Makes sense.” Cece said looking towards the charred corpse of the angel. It’s feather’s were blackened and the stone and dirt surrounding it had turned into glassy igneous rock. It still hissed with heat. “I’ll give you the divinity if I can have the body.” She proposed.

“Deal.” Eibon said immediately.

“You agreed to that rather quickly.”

“Angel corpses are useless for necromancy. Divinity and magic don’t tend to get along all that well. I have no idea what possible use you have for an angel’s corpse, but I’m too tired to even ask.”

“I have my purposes.”

“Of that, I’m sure.” He said, his tone picking up slightly. “Are we teleporting back?”

“Yes, I just need to alter the scroll for our uninvited guest.” Cece pulled out a scroll, and moved her eyepatch off of her eye to reveal the daemonic circle underneath. It flashed with light as scribe’s eye rewrote several inscriptions. “LM7J0” She intoned as Eibon felt the world shift beneath his feet.

He blinked and when he opened his eyes, he was in Cece’s hotel room, Lotte sitting on the bed with a blank expression.

“See, I told you not to worry. She’s right where you left her.” Eibon said, his tone partially masking how exhausted he was.

“I guess you were right.” Cece said, feeling a little silly.

“Where’s Finn?” Eibon asked upon realizing the paladin wasn’t with them.

“Outside a hospital.”

“That’s for the best then, do you think he’ll tell anyone about us.”

“No.” Cece said with a smile. “I got to see into his mind, not a lot, but enough. Finneas O’Hare is a good man.”