At sunrise, Aleyah came to open the door and greet the duo. Aurelius just went ahead and limped inside without so much as noting her presence, bumping her a little in the process. It was the first time Cade had seen Aurelius like that. And even though Aleyah didn't know Aurelius at all, even she looked shocked.

Cade looked down and sighed as she stepped inside. Aurelius threw away his scarf and took his shoes off with his feet before going straight for the staircase.

"Ah, don't go there," Aleyah said in a hurry. "The guest room is occupied."

Aurelius looked at her wordlessly before dropping his bag. Cade directed her inquisitive gaze at Aleyah as well, who looked troubled.

She leaned towards Cade and whispered, "I'll tell you about it later." She looked at Aurelius, who dug his notebook out of his bag and went to sit at the kitchen table. "Right, there's food. You must be hungry."

"Yeah, thanks," Cade said with a tired nod before moving into the kitchen.

"Um, could I ask where that one boy is? Balgair, was it? Did he die?"

Cade sat down opposite Aurelius and leaned her elbows onto the table. "He's not dead, but he is gone. I don't expect we'll see any more of him."

Aleyah opened her mouth, but didn't get a word out. She then turned and went to get a few plates.

She brought them to the table and tried to give one to Aurelius, who just put up a hand. "No, thank you."

It was then that Aleyah saw it. The thing that Aurelius had been drawing almost constantly for the rest of the trip since Boeria. Aurelius was no artist, but any imitation of that scene was bound to be horrific Cade pursed her lips and took a plate for herself.

"What is that?" Aleyah asked, her nose twitching with disgust.

"The leader of Boeria's Numen branch. The whole place was annihilated before we could get to it. And it seems it was all just to deliver a message," Aurelius answered monotonously as he kept detailing the limbs nailed to the wall like decorations.

"What kind of message is that?"

"'Stay out of my business.' Whoever he is, he's giving me an out. My bounty is gone now."

"The Idea of a Human?" Aleyah read out loud. "Who did this?"

"Not who. What," Aurelius corrected, his words like insults. "It could be the leader of Numen. Could be one of the Houses. Fuck, it could be the president." Aurelius was about to slam the table but held himself back. "I don't know. But it was directed at me. On some sick kind of personal level." He pointed to the text on the man's body, where it read 'Golden One'.

Aleyah stepped back, holding her forehead, and tried to get a word out.

Cade took a deep breath. "Don't worry. Even if someone knew our location previously, I made sure we weren't followed here."

Aleyah nodded nervously and remembered the food. She then fetched some soup and left Cade and Aurelius alone.

For a long time, not a single word was heard in the entire house.

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But when Aleyah came back, Cade remembered that there was still something.

"Could you come with me?" Aleyah said, gesturing out of the kitchen.

Cade stood up silently and left Aurelius to drown in his notebook. She then followed Aleyah upstairs and to the guest room. When that door opened, she saw a young woman with blonde hair lying where Aurelius had been half a year ago. The woman was bruised, and her neck was bandaged. She turned shaky eyes from the white roof to Cade and Aleyah as they entered, and Cade's frown got deeper.

She'd seen such eyes before. Such blank pearls. She put a hand on her chin and cracked her neck a little. There were some people for her to kill.

***

Cade was gone for longer than expected, and Aurelius finally headed upstairs.

As he was right at the door of the guest room, it opened and Cade walked out with narrow, shaded eyes. She was going to kill someone. Aurelius stumbled and felt pain radiate through his body that sent him falling backward to the ground. As he fell, the impact only caused more pain.

Aurelius groaned while Cade looked down at him. She then stepped to the side and went to walk past him.

"Wait!" Aurelius said. "What's going on?"

"None of your concern. You can take my room. Go rest."

Aurelius sprung to his feet and walked up to the guest room. He rushed the door open and paused. His eyes went straight to the bruised girl in the bed, who flinched at the sight of him.

He shut the door and turned to go after Cade. "Hey, let me help."

Cade turned back to him with a deadly serious expression as she was about to go downstairs. "You can barely walk."

"Yeah, but I can take care of some low lives. That's who you're going after, right?"

Cade took a step toward him, and soon they were face-to-face. "My answer is no."

Aurelius' hands shot up, and he grabbed Cade by her collar. "Come on! I can fight."

Cade's eyes stayed steady as she grabbed Aurelius' wrists. "You need to rest."

"I've done nothing but rest the past week. All the while, people are getting murdered, robbed, and defiled. Isn't this enough rest? I just want to help. Things are getting worse, worse, and worse. And I'm not doing anything!" Aurelius' jaw shook as he tried to make her understand. "I– I'm helpless."

"Calm down. You have a purpose here," Cade said, pointing at the door. "Stay and watch over her while I go looking outside. That's what you can do right now."

Aurelius opened his mouth, let out a sigh, and relaxed his grip. Cade then turned and walked off, while he made his way to the guest room door and sat down next to it. He took out his notebook and started scribbling something, but gave up halfway and hung his head.

Aleyah exited and looked at Aurelius in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"Guarding her," Aurelius answered, his voice deep and targeted at the floor. He knew it was a lie. He was just sitting there while holding a pathetic excuse close to his chest.

"Ah, right," Aleyah said, opening the door to the guest room. "Hey, Betty, you have a really strong guard outside, so sleep tight." Aurelius heard a low mumble come from the room before Aleyah closed the door and gave Aurelius a wink before walking off.

Aurelius bumped his head on the wall behind him a few times before hanging it again. He then opened his notebook on his lap and scrolled through the walls of text in it. Gabriel this, Gabriel that.

Why did the guy even teach him anything? He could've just left after delivering the news. What point was there in sticking around if he would leave in just a couple of months? Was he there to just play dad for him? Right when Aurelius started to think of him as one, he just left.

But, of course, there was a clear reason for it all. Aurelius had too much potential to be ignored. He just had to do it. In life, if you were super talented at something, you had no choice. That was the thing you would do.

Aurelius had always thought of his talent as a means to an end. However, it was obvious that it didn't work that way.

You couldn't assign a meaning to the meaning assigned to you.

While he had the talent to be the strongest, he had no talent for saving people. He had no talent for being a hero. He was meant to be powerful, and it seemed that was all he was ever going to be.

He would never save anyone. He would just grow more powerful. He would never own a fortune because his fortune was the enormous amount of essence in the palm of his hand. He would never hold a loved one because they would be crushed by him. He would never see any beauty because it all lay so far below him.

The day he got to know of his power, that power became his world. And now he had nowhere else to live but that world. His path had been decided when Gabriel descended into his world.

Aurelius slammed the back of his head into the wall behind him, and there was a dull impact. He wasn't hurt. He shut his eyes peacefully and prayed. He prayed for the past to be rewritten.

He prayed that he would never have met Gabriel.