The tolling of bells resonated in Eve's chest, crackling against her ribs with painful fervor. One every few breaths: their sound scorching her eardrums in their wake. They tolled not for the passage of time, which the mythics had no use for, but in typical, superficial fashion, for presentation.

It had grown perceptibly colder. Chimneys on some homes had begun to throw smoke into the air, smelling thickly of incense. Samir's skin was almost feverish under her cold fingers, damp in a way that should have been offputting but instead only increased Eve's terror. Her heart was in her mouth, fleshy and full and suffocating.

Pulling herself together by the skin of her teeth, Eve snuck a glance up at Samir from beneath her lashes, only to find the man already looking at her. The set of his jaw was harsh, in a concerned way, words suppressed by act of sheer will. She'd seen a similar expression directed at her several times in the past, but it had never failed to send a pulse of warmth across the tops of her cheeks. Today, she was too terrified to feel flattered by the attention.

"This way," she said, keeping a firm grasp on the man's hand, guiding him quietly into the maze of downwards sloping streets and towards one of the only places in the city she knew to be abandoned.

Shaped like the budding petals of a flower, each wall of the pale building stretched upwards in elegant arcs. Huddled beneath the enormous, curved walls was a dome constructed of white marble. Their footsteps fell softly on stone tiles as they approached, sending dusty clouds swirling skyward with every footstep.

There was no door, nor any entrance. For all of a second, Eve hesitated, fingers a hairsbreadth from the wall. Would it remember her?

"Eve?" Samir asked, the tenor of his voice startling her, knuckles brushing against the polished white surface. The wall rippled.

She swallowed through a suddenly dry throat.

"Inside," Eve managed in a whisper. "And stay close."

Samir sounded amused despite everything. "That won't be a problem." Did the man know no fear?

Eve clutched his palm tighter as they stepped forward, slipping past the solid surface, which sucked them inside as though welcoming their intrusion. It was more for her comfort than for Samir's, who winced at the strength with which her nails dug into his skin. His rings had warmed with the heat of his body, but they felt soft and smooth where her fingers brushed across them.

It was dark inside. Always had been, but never before had it felt so oppressively suffocating. Air stuck on her tongue, tasting of damp stone. Eve took a second, shuddering step forward. "Stairs."

Samir only stumbled once as they descended.

Eve nearly toppled downwards more times than she was keen to admit, not even her memory of the building enough to keep the nerves at bay. Cobwebs lined the walls, sticky silk against their sides, any living creatures long since dead.

Staircase leveling out, they walked only a minute longer, entering the main chamber of the building.

By her side, Samir's gasp rustled past his lips.

Eve had forgotten how beautiful her home had been, once.

The ceiling was staggeringly uneven, like the rolling keys of a piano. The walls - a bright, bewitching mosaic of colors - melted flawlessly from one scene into another, and shifted softly every few moments, rippling, the tiles shifting and turning to begin displaying a new picture. From the mountains to the far reaches of the sky, magic swallowed them up, rising up around them in waves of sensation and image.

Her gaze trailed downwards towards the floor. The choking sensation in her chest returned twofold, and she was barely able to tackle Samir sideways before her centuries of practice had fed her sharp terror into a cloak of magic to veil them both from sight and silence the sound of their fall.

In the center of the room was a vat: covered, but glowing dimly with that sickly, telltale green of magic. The contraption was starkly out of place, crafted of a dark, metallic material that Eve was entirely unfamiliar with and looking more industrial than anything that would have been native to the second dimension. A shadow flitted about it, drawing the lid back, the room flooding briefly with a light that was bright enough to drown out the landscapes flashing across the walls. And then it was gone again, revealing a short, stout man with what was most certainly a crooked spine.

"It's not enough," said someone from the shadows. A voice hardly louder than a whisper, and yet, the room hung onto his words, inhaling them greedily and allowing them to sink into the very fabric of the world. Eve knew that voice. Its rich, forbidding malevolence.

"Sir," the hunchback stuttered, "this is all that we had, sir."

"Then use the reserves," came the hiss, commanding. The visible man recoiled into an awkward, trembling bow. "Don't tell me we've run out of those as well, Noz?"

"No sir, not yet, sir. It is only the men-" He winced, looking as though he was hesitating, mulling over his next words. "The men find using the reserves...unpleasant."

A sigh came then, low and measured. The shadows stirred lazily, not too far from where Eve and Samir were crouched. "Can't anybody around here get their hands dirty?"

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"Of course, of course. I'll convey your wishes," Noz murmured deferentially, but the look in his glinting, dark eyes was oddly expectant. "Would you like a sample this time as well?"

"No," the voice purred, and this time, it seemed to bounce off every corner of the room. "Why don't you offer it up as a reward? To those that are willing to...help. With the reserves."

"My liege," Noz whispered. His crooked back twisted into another unusual position. "Are you sure about this?"

"Hm, what was it that those creatures said in these situations?" the voice said, punctuating the sentence with a low hum. "Ah yes. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." There was an awkward pause. Then the voice, a low, threatening hiss, echoed out, trailing through Eve's ears. "Do it."

A shadow stepped into their line of site, revealing exactly who Eve had been expecting.

War.

People often expected the deity to be fiery, violent, explosive. Instead, frost began to spread across the tops of Eve's hands, the walls, her shoes, creeping towards Noz, who yelped and sunk into an even deeper bow. Hedeon had always been a man of quiet, measured control and cruelty. A deliberate tactician who had never, not once in all the centuries Eve had suffered, visibly lost his cool.

The deity's tastes hadn't changed much. The walls of the room undulated in response to his arrival, sinking into a gloomy, faintly glowing carmine. The color glinted off his pale skin and glossy blonde hair, neatly coiffed to allow several strands to fall over his eyes. When he stepped forward, his walking cane clicked against the black glass floor, sharp and metallic. He tossed something then, fast and shimmering through the air. As the hunchback leapt for the faintly glowing, jade bottle, Eve recognized the liquid it contained. She'd seen it before. At the aqueduct. What was that?

Hedeon's gaze swept backwards - towards where they crouched, Eve's shroud of concealment raised up about them - and his shrewd expression turned into a sinister smile. Eve shuddered almost imperceptibly.

He knew exactly where they were. Could kill them, if he so desired.

"Who's this?" Hedeon drawled instead, his eyes, golden and snake-like, meeting Eve's from beyond her shoddily erected barrier. He didn't take a single step in their direction. Eve couldn't help her sharp inhale regardless.

By her side, Samir began to stand.

Eve panicked. Her hands shot out, tangling in his shirt, trying to yank him back down. "Sit down you fool, oh lords, why does everybody around me want to die?"

Samir paused, half upright. "You're scared of him, yes? I'm not."

"Samir," Eve hissed, venomous, "that's a literal god."

"I'm not religious, thanks," Samir replied, proceeding to peel her fingers back one by one.

"Please," Eve begged, and the terror in her voice made him pause a second time, thumb stroking over the top of her hand.

"I'm just going to buy us some time. And you'll find us a way out. Okay?"

"I can't." Her voice was hardly louder than a whisper. "Please."

"Thirty seconds. I know you'll be able to get us out by then."

"You're a fool," Eve hissed, but the man continued to unfold himself, pushing away from her and past the veil until he was visible. He glanced back, and Eve was sure that his words were meant for her - and for her alone.

"Every opportunity I have to save you is worth a thousand lives."

Samir's appearance was almost enough to distract Hedeon from who else lay hidden, but not entirely sufficient. Hedeon's eyes remained firmly fixed on Eve's position, pulsating with a strange, white light. Her empty pockets felt wildly insufficient for dealing with this situation.

"Not bringing your friend with you?" Hedeon drawled, glancing briefly in Samir's direction. There, his expression faltered.

Eve knew the feeling.

Samir was a void in the ever changing, overwhelming magic of life - neither here nor there. The sensation of glancing at someone's face and immediately losing them from your memory.

For Hedeon, who thrived on the anger and the violence of humanity, this calm emptiness couldn't have been anything less than infuriating. His leather gloves, the backs of them studded with starsilver, groaned as his grip tightened against silver metal handle of the cane.

"Whose servant are you?" Hedeon asked. He sounded a little bit less disinterested now.

"Servant? Bit presumptuous of you, isn't it?"

Hedeon smiled. "Nobody who had any sense of how things worked would dare stand against me," he said, simply. Samir only transferred his weight from one foot to another, and snorted.

"Sounds like you have absolutely no idea how the working classes live. They, more than anyone else, will know exactly who should not be aggravated." The man was antagonizing Hedeon. Actively.

Eve cursed under her breath, focusing, just as hard as she could possibly bear on the spell she was preparing. She didn't have much more than earlier. A (broken) piece of chalk. Half a crumbled donut. Samir's empty, useless, brain.

And fury. So much indignant, prideful, fury.

Eve gulped it down like water as she began to draw lines of white amidst the tiles, keeping half an eye on Samir, who had - irritatingly - begun to smirk.

"Thousands of times, I have been around the sun. Never have I seen such insolence."

"Then your life must be especially boring."

Hedeon, everlasting calm, only exhaled.

The blast of pure energy that went ricocheting outwards tore the very floor and air apart, hundreds of times stronger than any sort of magic Eve could use in her frail human body. The spell had gone nearly white with the sheer heat and pressure of the power Hedeon had poured into it, and it was only the blood that had begun to seep from Eve's tongue that kept her from screaming.

No- no. Anything but this.

She couldn't watch this. She couldn't watch Samir die. She'd done her best to keep him separate. Had pushed him away, pushed him away on purpose, so that her presence would not endanger him. Had killed the hallow, so that the mythics could not track him. A sob ripped from her throat, unable to watch - and yet, unable to look away.

She thought she might throw up.

Eve couldn't watch any more humans die on her behalf.

The flash of anger - of pain and violence - winked quietly out of existence and was replaced by quiet surprise.

Samir snarled, his chest heaving, one palm extended in front of him, the skin of it only lightly blistered where the wave had not stopped in time.

Eve drew the last line of chalk.

Hedeon's easy-going demeanor stiffened for half a second, then softened with another sneer.

"Oh?" he said, quietly, dangerously, the room growing dimmer, until it was close to pitch black. "How very amusing."

"Samir," Eve's voice was a shadow of its usual strength, leaking through her magic so she could call the man back towards herself. Samir allowed himself to fall backwards and into her waiting arms.

"That voice." Hedeon said, and for the first time in her long, dreary existence, Eve watched that mask slip. Watched as his lips curled into a genuine snarl, parting around his teeth as they sharpened into predatory canines. "I know that voice. There's no way it should still exist."

Around them, the dimension warped, rippling unsteadily, tunneling.

"Hang on," Eve said again, clutching onto Samir tightly and fighting to stay upright beneath his weight.

"Evelyn," Hedeon breathed. The word hung in the air, at once holy and perverted, clawing its way into Eve's heart and anchoring there painfully.

And then they were gone, coarse sand sinking between their toes, only the sound of crashing waves and Samir retching into the sand.