It was early morning in the town of Angel Bay, New South Wales, Australia, just up the coast from Sydney. It was still fairly dark, with only a little bit of light creeping over the horizon. Two maintenance workers, Derek and Paul, were busy doing routine checks on a cellular tower near Angel Bay University, which was the town’s only university.
They were both weary and eager to just get this done, and were drinking a lot of coffee. It wasn’t great coffee, however, and apparently this particular coffee pot didn’t agree with either of them.
“I’m never letting you get coffee for us ever again,” Paul grumbled as he worked on examining the electronics.
“Eh, it’s alright, just makin’ me feel kinda weird. Almost like it’s booze,” Derek said, sitting down on the lawn.
“You’d wish it was booze. But it’s the middle of the week, not Friday,” Paul noted, as he continued to work.
There was half a minute of silence before Derek changed the topic.
“Hey, Paul, you heard about those people goin’ missing recently?” Derek said.
“Oh, no, no, it’s not like it’s not all over the bloody news,” Paul grumbled. “Dozens of people reported missing over the course of a month, and the police suspect there might be even more.”
“You think it’s some terrorist plot or somethin’?” Derek said, glancing at his colleague. “Mass kidnapping for a ransom from the government?”
“If it was it’s sure as hell a ballsy idea, there’s never been a terrorist attack in Australia. At least, not that I can think of,” Paul shrugged. “The feds are usually on it like flies on shit, if this is a mass kidnapping I’m just surprised the culprits haven’t been caught yet.”
The sounds of metal being sheared echoed through the air. Paul was much quicker to react, and shone his flashlight in the direction of the sound. “Hey, what the hell is going on over there?”
“Huh?” Derek blinked, also turning awkwardly in the same direction, fumbling with his flashlight. The two of them could see three figures having somehow ripped large holes in the nearby chain link fence. “what the hell are you doing? You’re damaging private property and trespassing, get outta here before I call the cops!”
The figures stepped through, not answering. They seemed to have skin as black as night, with glowing red eyes and light armour over what looked like normal clothes, complete with helmets. Their expressions were blank, eyes wide.
“Hey, Derek, these guys look super creepy,” Paul noted to his colleague, his hand gripping the flashlight tighter, “why are their eyes glowing like tha-”
“Oh, it’s a prank!” Derek laughed, clapping as he stepped towards the trio, his caffeine-fuelled mind coming to a premature conclusion on what was happening. “Nice job with the paint, fellas, but the costumes really need some work. You almost had me there for a second, I’ll give you that.”
The three figures just stared at Derek, not even making a sound.
Paul began moving towards Derek, intending to pull him back as he stretched out an arm. “Derek, mate, you should step back, I don’t like this at all.”
“What? They ain’t got weapons or anythin’-” Derek was interrupted by his arms being seized by two of the figures, whose free hands suddenly transformed into nasty-looking blades that were held to his throat. “Hey, what’re you doing?!”
Paul almost stopped in his tracks, as he watched the third figure suddenly form some kind of black spherical substance from his body, which floated in mid-air, moving towards Derek. He had a wrench on his belt, but he didn’t know if it was a decent weapon against someone with a helmet. The notion of fleeing entered his mind, if but a moment.
He tried to attack anyway, grabbing the wrench and rushing one of the armoured figures, slamming it into his head. The figure actually stumbled back, the helmet cracked and his face was clearly damaged, but it seemed to just stare at him unblinking, and it wasn’t bleeding, just cracked like a porcelain doll.
Paul swung again. The armoured figure just blocked the strike with its arm, not even flinching from the blow.
The sphere suddenly shot at Derek, sticking to his torso in a splatter of black mass. The man gawked down at it, bewildered. “What the… This stuff is kinda-” Then the black substance began to expand outwards across his clothes. “H-Hey, what’s it doing?!”
The two figures restraining him suddenly let go. Paul wondered why, until it became apparent that, despite Derek’s best efforts, he could not tear the black mass free from his body.
“Get it off me! Paul, help!” Derek screamed in panic as the mass spread, covering most of his torso and spreading to his limbs, beginning to pull his entire body together. He was rapidly silenced as the mass spread over his neck and mouth, with only muffled screams to be heard.
Paul finally found the nerve to flee, dashing away from them with immediate haste, grabbing his phone and hurriedly attempting to call emergency services, something he should’ve done from the start.
“No, we can’t have that,” spoke a distorted, masculine voice from the shadows, as a bolt of energy came into Paul’s vision, striking the phone and shattering it in his hands.
Paul continued to flee regardless, but before he could even reach the fence as he fumbled for the gate key, he slammed right into something that at first he thought was invisible. It took a moment for him to register that the obstacle in front of him was a translucent blue energy field. He tried to slam his shoulder against it, eyes widening as he tried to figure out where it stopped. “What… What’s going on now?!”
“A simple combination of runes, ‘Barrier’ and ‘Creature’, to create a field that keeps living creatures from leaving its confines. I also enacted a non-solid barrier with the ‘Sound’ rune to ensure no sounds escape,” remarked the distorted voice, coming from behind. “Of course, I doubt you understand what I’m talking about, you pathetic little thing that knows nothing of magic.”
Paul spun around, scanning the scene that had been right behind him as he fell down on his ass, slumping back against the barrier. “Barrier? Magic? What?!”
Firstly, the black mass that was on Derek had formed a cocoon around him. And something was growing from it - a humanoid figure that resembled the silent figures, but had a face that Paul realised was identical to Derek’s, and was wearing his outfit under the armour.
Secondly, striding over towards him was a taller figure akin to the others, but one that wore grander, more impressive armour and helmet covering his entire body, along with a regal-looking cloak. Paul swore for a moment that above and behind the imposing figure there had been an indistinct black spectral form with glowing red eyes, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
The regal figure stopped in front of Paul, glaring down at him. The stare was enough to freeze the man to the spot as he trembled. The figure spoke, “I’ve found myself rather enjoying the looks of terror on the faces of weaklings like you.”
“So you’re… You’re some crazy supervillain or something?” Paul said, trying to feign any kind of courage. “I guess you’re behind all the people going missing, then. Well, once the government figures out what’s happening, they’ll just send in the army, and you’ll be-”
Suddenly, the figure’s gauntlet-covered hand shot forward, grabbing Paul by the throat and lifting him up with inhuman ease. Paul briefly choked, registering that the grip was just enough to only lightly constrict his breathing. He tried to strike the hand and arm with his flashlight multiple times, but neither budged. Their eyes met, and Paul realised that what little of his attacker’s face he could see past the helmet looked surprisingly youthful in complexion. How old was he?
“Your attempts at trying to look brave are lacklustre at best,” the regal figure said. “I’m tempted to indulge myself, but I’m on a deadline. Rejoice, you will be reborn as one of my servants, like your colleague was. I am the Tenebris Imperatoris, and the future ruler of this world.”
Paul had little opportunity to either register the name or properly respond as the ‘Tenebris Imperatoris’ started dragging him back over towards the minions, still holding him by the throat as Paul desperately struggled to try and loosen his grip, before tossing him to the ground fiercely.
Paul’s body was wracked with pain, as he tried to get back up onto his feet, but the Emperor’s boot slammed him back down, eliciting a scream of pain. He glanced upwards, to see the Emperor create another black orb, which shot down at Paul’s body.
Paul’s screams were swiftly silenced, only heard by his captors, with the town around him completely unaware of the threat in its midst.
----------------------------------------
Chapter One
Estella Kendrick stared up at the blue hexagons that patterned the sky, which, according to the news, apparently covered Earth’s entire outer atmosphere. “That planetary shield is supposed to protect us, but I can’t help but feel it is a bad omen,” the sword-shaped necklace around her neck remarked in her head with an older, masculine voice.
Said talking necklace had been, only a couple of hours ago, a full-sized talking actual sword which had inexplicably appeared in her bedroom. His name was Galowye, and apparently, he had chosen Estella as his bearer and ‘Arcane Knight’. Oh, and around his handle had been a bunch of parchments that held magical ‘runes’ that were absorbed into Estella’s body almost immediately upon touch.
There were way too many questions Estella had at the moment, but at the same… She was apparently a magical superheroine now, and the moment she realised that was what he had been offering her she embraced it wholeheartedly. Fuckin’ dope.
She stretched as she walked alongside her two sisters up the road towards the university. It was a rather pleasant late-autumn morning. The sky was clear with few clouds to be seen, and the temperature was mildly on the slightly colder side of things.
The three sisters lived in the small city of Angel Bay, New South Wales, Australia, just north of Sydney and Newcastle on the coastline. Their parents had settled down here apparently because it wasn’t as busy as a big city, but not too quiet like the rural towns. And they picked a rather prime spot for real estate, because the girls were in walking distance of the local university, which was rather aptly named Angel Bay University. It was hardly the most distinguished university out there in Australia, but it had a fairly reasonable reputation regardless, which was good, because unless you were willing to move out of town, it was the only choice you had for tertiary education in the area.
She hummed a tune as she adjusted the orange band at the back of her slate blue hair. Angel Bay University was already in sight, and they’d be on campus in a few minutes. “Winter chill is starting to creep in.”
“Not the only thing that’s creeping around here,” sighed her youngest sister, Natalia, the shortest of the trio, as she scratched her neck-length sapphire blue hair with some worry in her voice. She had opted for an orange sweater, and a cactus-green set of leggings. “More people are going missing in town.”
“Well, good thing we agreed to walk to and from campus together when people started going missing, even before, well… All of this,” Estella said, fishing her phone from one of her grey jacket’s arm-pockets, checking for the latest news. Aside from her bag, her jacket had two buttoned arm pockets and another two on the chest, though considering her rather substantial chest size most people just called them ‘boob-pockets’.
“Um, right… Also, why are you two at all okay with going out with those clothes in this weather? Aren’t you both cold?!” Natalia asked incredulously, pointing to everything below Estella’s waist - the dark blue leotard and long socks.
“Nat, it’s not that bad, and a little chill isn’t an excuse to not look good,” Estella grinned, turning around. “And I’m pretty modest compared to Anja over here!”
“Eh. It’s fine,” Anja shrugged. She was the middle sister, and the tallest of the trio by head (and the bustiest). A pair of sunglasses adorned her long Persian blue hair, and she wore a sky blue backless top and a pair of denim shorts. She shared her turquoise eyes with her sisters. “Cold don’t bother me any.”
“I have my personal theories as to why, but that’s for later,” Galowye remarked via the mental link between him and Estella.
Estella frowned, noting Anja’s lazy gait and how she was almost falling behind. Natalia obviously wanted to just get to campus quickly, but Anja was in one of her moods again. “Hey. Anj. You alright?”
It was only an hour ago when she had to shake Anja to get her out of bed. Not because she was lazy, it wasn’t really her fault. Sometimes her sister simply lacked the emotional energy to get out of bed without assistance.
Of course, that was also when she discovered a cylindrical canister next to the bed, containing an amorphous symbiotic entity calling itself ‘Prometheus’ that wanted to bond with Anja to give her unique powers. Galowye vouched for the creature being friendly and actually wanting to help, and surprisingly, Anja actually let it bond with her, allowing it to reside inside her body. They had decided to call it ‘Prometheus’, apparently due to that being the name of the original project that created it.
“Yeah, I’m fine, this morning was interesting enough to get me going. I’ll be perfectly fine by the time class starts,” Anja simply nodded to her, making eye contact. Her spark had been slowly returning, thanks to emotional support and therapy, but Estella couldn’t forget that terrible night when her lively, dramatic sister just… Shut down. But after what happened, who could blame her?
“Just take it easy, Anja, we’re here for you,” Natalia smiled softly.
“We do need to talk about your issues, Nat,” Estella squinted at Natalia, who made a cute ‘eep’ sound. “You slept through your alarms again. You need to stop it with the late nights.”
“But I was less late this time…” Natalia fidgeted, a blush forming on her face.
The fact that Natalia had come out of her bedroom this morning looking more than a little freaked out, holding some kind of energy rifle and claiming she was now suddenly a cyborg had complicated matters. Especially since she proved it immediately afterwards by somehow storing said rifle inside her torso via some kind of compression tech and summoning it back again, and showed her sisters the device in her bedroom that had, upon interaction, had injected nano-tech cybernetics into her body.
According to Galowye, he, Prometheus and the cybernetic technology were provided by the same source, in preparation for something that would potentially happen that day. And the planetary shield in the sky was for the purpose of keeping an alien invasion at bay. Something that’d be explained later.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Estella sighed, turning back around. “I know you’re working on your own projects, but you still need more sleep. Mum wouldn’t let you get away with it if she wasn’t out of the country.”
All three of them were still very much trying to process what was going on, and thus trying to avoid bringing up the proverbial elephant in the room for the time being.
“Which one?” Natalia asked. The sisters had two mothers - Ryana and Atsuko, the former being Australian and the latter being Japanese.
“Both of them. Atti especially,” Estella said, bringing up a family photo on her phone. “I wish they wouldn’t spend so much time overseas… The house feels emptier without them.”
“It does, but… I just want them to come home and tell us the truth already,” Natalia replied bitterly. That was family drama that Estella did not wish to dredge back up.
“Let’s not bring that back up and change the subject, you’re still doing some pretty late nights,” Estella said, shaking her head, looking back over her shoulder.
“Yeah, I know,” Natalia admitted. “Though it’s not like you two don’t spend some late nights partying.”
“Eh, fair cop, though you’re going to less of them. I know you’re not as sociable as us, but it feels like you’ve become a bit more shut-in,” Anja interjected.
“Uni’s a different atmosphere than high school. You’re used to it already by being a year ahead, I’m not,” Natalia replied with a sigh and a shake of her head.
“You won’t get used to it if you just lock yourself in your room at every opportunity!” Estella remarked with a slight chuckle, “it’s okay to hang with friends, you know?”
“Easy for you to say, you’re the town’s serial Juliet,” Natalia grumbled.
Anja snorted, glancing at Estella. “She’s got you there. I know you’ve slowed down on the dating, but back in high school, you had how many boyfriends and girlfriends…?”
Estella pouted, looking back ahead, unable to provide a proper retort for several seconds. “I can’t help that I have terrible luck with dates.”
Galowye chuckled at that, but didn’t say anything more.
It was at this point where they finally arrived on campus, and Estella was able to drop the subject in a hurry, eagerly mingling with students also arriving that morning.
The university had a large and open campus. A large chunk of the campus grounds had a lot of greenery, including a few creeks and a small lake, where one could see plenty of waterfowl - it was not uncommon to see ducks wandering near the waterways. Being the only university in town, there were a large variety of facilities, and it wasn’t uncommon for some people to walk some distance cross-campus to get to their classes.
“Hey, Mei, we still on for the party this weekend?” Estella called out to a student she immediately recognised.
“Hell yeah, we are!” Mei said, passing by with a wave, which Estella reciprocated.
“Lookin’ fine today, Es! Love the new necklace! Isn’t it kinda chilly, though?” Vinh asked as he passed by.
“I can deal, no worries,” Estella grinned, exchanging a fist bump with him.
“Hey, Estella, we can study a bit together sometime today or tomorrow? There’s a few things about the last few lectures that kinda confused me,” spoke Steven as he caught up to her.
Estella briefly thought about this before replying, “maybe, if it doesn’t conflict with my job hours. We’ll see. We’ll talk later, alright?” She then put an arm around his shoulder, speaking in a hushed tone, “and maybe I can teach you some lessons on how you can please Connie in bed~”
“Oh my God, sis,” Natalia groaned, burying her head in her hands.
“You really get to get your mind out of the gutter… But I wouldn’t mind that, I guess. Later,” Steven said, blushing profusely as he hurried away.
“ESTELLA! PLEASE DATE ME AGAIN!”
Estella immediately did a double-take as she stopped in her tracks, as one of her ex-boyfriends, Brendan (short blonde hair, blue eyes, kind of a jock), was standing right there and on one knee. “Excuse me what.”
“HEY! I saw her first, you loser!” June (another ex, cute brunette with braids and green eyes) suddenly rushed up, falling to one knee right beside Brendan, “ignore him, he had his chance, please go out with me again, Estella!”
Suddenly, Estella felt a chill down her spine. Something was seriously off about this.
“Ah, good, you sensed it too. I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to after only beginning to harness your Energeia. Stay on your guard,” Galowye advised her mentally.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Es, this is why you need to get your love life in order,” Natalia grumbled.
“You say this like this happens regularly?!” Estella said to her sister with some exasperation, before becoming aware that this was starting to make a scene, and she sighed, speaking to her two exes, “sorry, I’m not interested in going out with either of you two again right now. I’m-”
“You’re single again, everyone knows you broke off with Jay!” June said.
“How would you possibly know that?” Estella blinked.
“Kinda obvious, sis, you haven’t been nearly so lovey-dovey around him lately,” Anja said dryly.
“What she said!” Brendan said.
“Okay, look, both of you are good folks, and I enjoyed dating you both, but you gotta move on,” Estella said. She moved to grab Natalia’s shoulders before her youngest sister could flee the scene. “Natalia’s free! She’s cute, has just as nice a body as me, and she really needs a date.”
“Please don’t drag me into this, sis,” Natalia said, her face now beet red as she covered her face with her hands again. The topic of dating always flustered Natalia to no end.
Brendan seemed to consider it, but he had a question. “Why aren’t you suggesting both of your sisters? Anja’s got bigger boobs than either of you, and-”
“DUDE! Don’t you know what happened in high school?!” June hissed, pulling Brendan close and whispering in his ear.
Brendan’s eyes widened. “OH. Oh. I’m so sorry, Anja, I didn’t-”
“Nah, it’s alright, it’s cool, not everyone knows,” Anja shrugged. “Also, breast size has nothing to do with eligibility to date, mate.”
“Sorry, I’m not getting involved in this anymore! BYE!” Natalia said, shaking off Estella and fleeing for the engineering labs.
“Yeah, you’re on your own, sis, seeya,” Anja waved idly as she headed for biology.
Estella sighed. It took an embarrassingly long amount of time for her to talk Brendan and June into leaving her alone before she was able to finally get going and start heading for class.
Except despite that, she still felt the strange sensation. Whatever it was, it was actively following her.
Fortunately, Galowye had some practical advice ready. “Find a good place where you can deal with it without drawing attention. It seems to be drawn to your magical energy. If it is what I think it is, you should be able to deal with it without my direct aid. Let’s see how well you can intuitively cast spells.”
Fortunately, there was time before class, so Estella could afford to act like she was just wandering around a bit. She wandered into the closest building, and started looking for empty, unlocked classrooms. She had an idea, she just hoped she could put it into practice.
Upon finding a room she could slip into, she discreetly went in, closing the door behind her, and began setting up runes in her head. The papers wrapped around Galowye that morning were apparently instructional texts for the basics of magic. Honest-to-God magic, using runes as a simple but functional language used for shaping the energy known as 'Thaumic Energy’ into spells, though that energy was known by many names - Estella preferred ‘Energeia’ herself. As well, not only did the texts provide that knowledge directly to her brain, they also provided a full set of runes she literally could store in her body, though she could only store five runes in her brain that she could actively use at any one time. There were also ‘modifier’ runes she could store in her limbs to enhance or change the effects of spells in multiple ways, but she completely lacked training and practice, so basic rune usage would have to suffice for the time being.
The runes ‘Mask’ and ‘Vision’ would suffice for creating a simple illusion that would make it seem from the outside that the room was unoccupied and exactly how it was when Estella entered it. With a little bit of concentration and a simple hand gesture, the spell bound itself to the windows.
Estella stepped away from the door and to the other side of the room, turning towards the door.
As expected, the stalker came into the room in the same way, closing the door behind her. June looked distinctly more unhinged than before, with wide eyes and an unsettling grin. “Oh, Estella, you set things up so we could have our date in private~!”
“I told you I’m not interested, June,” Estella said sternly, eyes narrowing. This wasn’t like her. June wasn’t this crazy or obsessive.
“Oh, Estella, we were meant to be together, even if you don’t know it yet,” June giggled, as a white, partially transparent, spectral form emerging around her fingers, forming long, clawed hands. Her entire body was rapidly covered by the spectral form, which also formed a feminine, eyeless face in front of June’s.
Galowye was immediately providing analysis and advice. “She’s being possessed by a wraith. You’ll need to expel the entity from June’s body. Destroying the wraith’s form will be enough to banish it from this plane. Ideally we’d be able to send it on its way to the afterlife, but you lack the training to do so.”
Estella immediately started checking and switching runes, mentally responding, “Okay, simple enough, just use the ‘Banish’ rune-”
June suddenly pounced her with startling speed and agility, the wraith’s spectral hands moving separately and pinning Estella’s arms to the floor.
Estella tried to use ‘Banish’ and ‘Spirit’, but that only seemed to agitate the spectral form somewhat. “Not working!”
“A banish spell doesn’t work as long as the target has an anchor to whatever you’re banishing it from,” Galowye said.
June’s expression was outright lustful as she began fondling Estella’s huge breasts. “I’ve missed these so much! We’re going to have so much fun together!”
“She doesn’t seem to be all that dangerous right now,” Estella thought, blushing as her ex-girlfriend eagerly molested her, while she switched in the ‘Light’ rune.
Galowye immediately disagreed. “Perhaps not immediately, but that wraith is going to try and bind herself to you as well, and if given the chance, control the two of you as it feeds off of your spiritual essence. Right now it seems June’s desires are mainly being amplified, but in time she’ll become the wraith’s outright puppet.”
Estella immediately made a note of that as she felt a creeping chill up her arms - the wraith was already trying to affect her and amplify her emotional desires towards June. Thoughts of undressing and making out with her ex-girlfriend then and there were creeping into her mind. Not good, she had to do something, and fast.
She immediately wrestled her left arm upwards just enough to use the Light rune to create a quick, sharp burst of light, closing her eyes right before she did so, only opening them again when the flash subsided. June yelped in pain as she covered her eyes with her hands, the wraith also seemingly recoiling in pain as it let go of Estella.
Sorry, June, but that should just blind you momentarily, Estella thought as she bolted upright, shoving June onto her back. What Galowye said before gave her an idea - if the wraith was bonded to her, that could be severed.
She got on top of June, pinning her down, and focused on a specific rune chain - ‘Cancel’, ‘Bind’ and ‘Spirit’. When the spectral form began warping and moving out of sync with June’s body, she knew it had likely worked, and tried ‘Banish Spirit’ again. “Come on…”
The wraith shrieked as it was expelled from June’s body, floating in mid-air in its true, spindly legless form. It gazed at Estella with missing eyes, and screeched as it flew right at her.
Estella held her hand towards it, casting ‘Light’ and ‘Missile’ together. “Get fucking busted, you damn ghost.”
A projectile of light shot out of her hand, slamming into the spectral form and shattering it in an instant, its shriek of pain quickly fizzling out as what was left of the entity rapidly dissolved into nothingness.
“That was slightly touch-and-go there, but you acquitted yourself well enough,” Galowye said, a measure of pride in his voice.
“You could’ve told me I needed to unbind it first,” Estella thought as she got off June.
“Apologies, being sealed at the bottom of the ocean for centuries has not had a positive impact on my faculties, and I perhaps haven’t fully recovered.”
Questions for later. June groaned as she seemed to regain her senses, sitting up. “Estella…? Why are we here in this classroom?”
Apparently she didn’t remember what happened. Estella frowned, “you were following me for some reason, so I lured you here. You said some weird creepy things, tried to molest me, and then you bumped your head and passed out for a moment. Are you okay?”
A flash of recognition appeared in June’s eyes, as she rubbed her head. “I think so. I don’t know what came over me, I guess. You were walking away after refusing my request to date, and then… I kinda remember what you just described? My memories are weirdly hazy. Sorry for being a creep.”
“Are you sick? Maybe you should go home-”
“No, I’m good. Honestly, I feel a lot better now,” June smiled as she got back up on her feet.
Estella nodded, standing up as well, and put a hand on June’s shoulder, “okay, just take it easy. Who knows if what just happened might affect you again. If you feel weird again, just me know, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks, Es. Seeya later,” June giggled, kissing her on the cheek, and leaving the room.
Estella sighed, dispelling the illusion on the windows as she left the room, muttering under her breath, “that was kinda fucked up, not gonna lie. I’m just glad she doesn’t remember I was using magic.” Thankfully the commotion hadn’t drawn any attention from outside, which was lucky.
“Fortunately, possession by such spiritual entities does have a habit of making one’s memories of the experience rather hazy,” said Galowye. “Regardless, well done. But if our benefactors are correct, something much worse is likely to happen today. Stay on your guard.”
“And you’re not going to explain at all? Maybe I’d be a bit more prepared if you did.”
“The details aren’t clear even to me - something vile is moving in the underbelly of this town, and it will act soon. But with the invasion happening already, drastic measures have been taken to rely on a select few people to handle the problem, including you and your sisters. That’s the honest truth. Just stay on your guard, that’s all I can advise at present.”
Estella felt that Galowye was being honest with her, so she decided it was best to take his word for it. But if something much worse was actually lurking about, waiting to strike, what was she getting herself involved in?