I had known he was alive.

Not after the Union Station massacre. No, then, I had believed as Jay had: that the incident had stolen Galileo away from us. Those distressed feelings of grief that night in the hotel room had been authentic. I had been certain I had cradled his corpse in my arms in the great hall. His chest hadn't risen in those moments; I hadn't felt his warm breath against my arms; his facial expression was bland, serene even—which was extremely unusual for his constantly calculating mind. When Jay had pulled on my arm to get me to stand up and run before the police got there, I left believing that Galileo was dead. There was nothing that proved otherwise for the next several weeks.

It was one of the most shocking moments in my life when I was interrupted from my constant suicidal monologue in my cell at the Colorado Mental Health Institute and brought to a conference room. After bewitching the doctors and employees, Galileo stood in the conference room, as cool and collected as ever. At first, I couldn't believe the truth of what I was seeing. It was impossible. While Galileo was the one who had taught me everything I knew about espionage, I didn't think he could pull off a convincing corpse. And yet, he was standing in front of me. I was shaken, not at all in my right mind. I stumbled back towards the door, intending to rush out of the conference room.

It was locked from the outside.

A half-sob left my mouth as I flung myself around to face my mentor. "You're not real," I threw at him through wobbly lips.

"Bria," Galileo responded cautiously.

"You're dead. I saw you. You didn't have a pulse," I hissed.

Galileo glanced at the chair nearest to me. Within seconds, it moved away from the table as if moved by an invisible force and offered easy access to use it. Galileo claimed his own. "I know you have been through a lot in these past weeks. If you would just let me explain, maybe I can help you through some of that mental war you've been fighting with yourself. Maybe it will help." His tone caressed the tension in the room. My back was pressed against the door, my legs were unstable underneath my body. There was enough rationality in me to examine Galileo—his appearance, his mannerisms—and compare it to the wealth of experience I had on him. He had been in my life for twelve years. I knew exactly how he held his fork. I knew which side of his mouth twitched upwards whenever Jay made some silly comment. I knew he had a cowlick that he could never seem to conquer. I tried to find something with the Galileo before me now that would contradict the real one that I knew from before. Tried to find something that would reveal he was an imposter.

When I didn't immediately sit down, Galileo sighed. "I had to improvise quickly when shit went down that day. I had to act right in that moment when I realized what was happening, and there wasn't any time to advise you of it." He sounded apologetic.

Galileo and his plans. He never walked around without one brewing in his mind.

"How are you alive?" I breathed. That was the contradiction that demanded to be answered.

"I was never dead," Galileo confessed. "Remember how I was meeting those men in the restaurant next door?" I nodded slowly. "We had just enough time during that meeting for them to say some things that made me concerned. Before I could try to find a way to extract more information from them, they ended the meeting and raced back to the station. I knew something had gone wrong, that you had tripped some alarm. I entered the hall right as the massacre started. I saw you using vast amounts of power, or magic. Well, not using, because it was controlling you, as if your body could no longer contain it. It exploded right in a public place. With what I had just learned, I saw an opportunity. Yet, it was an opportunity that had to be taken right then, or else it would vanish. So, I took it. I pretended I was dead, if only to give me time to follow through on that opportunity."

Something broke in me. I accepted him and his words as truth.

My legs were trembling so much that I barely made it over to the office chair. I collapsed onto it. My elbows sunk to the table as my face buried itself into my palms. "I don't understand what's going on," I cried. "I've hurt so many people. They are charging me with so many counts of murder, they might as well as execute me right here so that they don't have to jump through all those hoops for my trial. They are never going to let me go. I'm never going to be free again. I'm going insane with all this guilt. I’ve killed a lot of people, and I don’t know how I did it.” My gaze betrayed me and briefly glanced at him through the waterfall of my tears. There was only sympathy in his gaze.

"I think you're a pawn in all of this," he said.

I snorted in bitterness. "It still doesn't take away what I did."

"Do you even know what you did? How you did it?" Galileo inquired with a hint of rage. My silence and distraught stare answered for me. "There is a much bigger world out there, Bria, one that I never told you about because your mother demanded you remain oblivious to it, regardless of my own opinions on the matter. The universe is much bigger than the mortal realm with all its presidents and assholes. What if I told you that there is a world of magic out there, and what you did a couple of weeks ago was have a magical explosion? What if I told you I have a theory that your mother was right in her fear of you being used as a pawn, and bad people in that magical world discovered your existence? They tampered with the dormant magic inside of you and caused it to explode as it did. That you are not to blame for those deaths, and they are?"

His words offered an excuse to place the blame on someone else if I dared to believe him. I wanted to believe him. I had a cynical nature, however, and thought his explanation was complete nonsense. It sounded like nonsense. My mother had spent most of my childhood telling me that the magical world was just fiction. There was only this world that I could see and hear and experience.

And yet...

I had seen the incident footage briefly in the interrogation room. There wasn’t any explanation for what I had done. I knew I hadn't possessed any weapons during the incident. That the silver lightning erupted from me, as did fire and water, and harmed everyone around me. It had destroyed property. From what I had seen in the video, there was not any limit to what I could do when I was lost in the throes of power.

“How would they have tampered with my magic?" I questioned in a monotone.

Galileo shook his head. "I don't know."

"Why would they have done that?"

Another shake of his head. "I don't know."

"You don't know very much."

"I know." Galileo smiled softly. "That's why I'm giving you another assignment."

I stared at him, perplexed, and wondering if he even understood the situation I was facing right now. "Are you going to get me out of jail somehow?" Would he find some way to convince the judge to give me a bond, just like he found a way to convince the hospital staff here to let him visit me?

A saddened expression overwhelmed his face. "No, I think this case has to take its course. If you get to the point where you're in prison for a year after you've been sentenced, then we'll revisit it. Although I don't think that point will ever come. There are invisible players involved in a game around us, people with insurmountable amounts of power. I think they are behind the massacre from a couple of weeks ago, and now that you are on their radar, it's quite possible that they will arrange for your freedom. They're going to want to bring you to their world and use you. They may decorate it as 'saving you’ and give you a lot of privileges and wealth. I want you to go with them. I want you to infiltrate their government and try to find out as much as you can."

I bit my bottom lip in consideration. "These people were involved with the compass?"

"These people have been involved with every single mission I've sent you on," Galileo said. "These are the people your mother had been working against leading up to her death. I took up her work in the attempt to save our race and the mortals from a terrible demise."

"What do you think is going on?" I asked pointedly. Galileo never spoke like this: full of doom. He hardly ever exaggerated, and when he did, it was usually because Jay had pissed him off.

"Do you remember the monster your mother went to fight when she left you with me?"

"How could I ever forget?" That was the night she had died, and then the next night, the monster had come after me.

"He goes by the name of Zane Konstantinos," Galileo announced. "And after eleven years, I've realized that your mother was unsuccessful in destroying him, and he's now pulling the strings in our government. He has always been an ambitious man. His intelligence is unparalleled, and I've seen enough from him to know that he is strategic. He tried to gain a seat of power in the government before. He was thwarted due to some crimes he committed. He knows he would never gain the same amount of public influence he had before. I think he has secretly infiltrated the government instead and is making decisions behind the scenes. In these past eleven years, I think he's been able to amass followers and elevate them to positions of power. He's been able to amass a lot of power and influence that way as well. I've been out of Astraera—the mage world—for far too long, and I'm no longer certain of where people's loyalties lay. The mage public is being deceived. And without any evidence, my hands are tied. If I go to the public with just my theories, no one will take me seriously."

I had become so involved in the conversation that my anxiety was heightened when I heard people walking by the conference room. I barely breathed as I waited for one of them to open the door and interrupt our clandestine meeting. It would be pure pandemonium if they saw I was out of my suicide watch cell talking to an unauthorized person. Galileo was silent as well, waiting for the footsteps to pass. No one opened the door, and when I couldn't hear their footsteps anymore, I breathed easier. "You want me to gain access to this government and see if he is the puppet master? Become a double agent?"

"More or less," Galileo shrugged. "I want to know what he's up to. That he went out of his way to acquire that compass rose I sent you to get means something."

I settled my forearms on the table and leaned my upper body against them. "You really think he'll get me out of jail?"

"Maybe not in the next couple of months, but yes. I think if you wait long enough, he's going to do something. I want you to go along with it. I want you to play the amazed young woman who did not know that this magical world existed—which shouldn't be too difficult, considering you know next to nothing about it. Eat the bread and wine out of his hand, become his loyal confidant, or whoever he's using as a puppet. See if you can confirm my theories." Galileo paused for a couple of moments. "This mission is going to take years, Bria. It's the longest I've ever requested from you. By now, you know you can't return to your life in Nashville. The Fates have altered your path. This is the only one you're being offered now."

The way he announced the obvious, with doom coating every syllable of his speech, made me swallow. "I know. I've already accepted that," I claimed. "What are you going to be doing?"

Galileo sighed. "Until we know more, it isn't safe for me to reveal that I'm still alive. We don't know how far Zane Konstantinos's influence reaches, and he may have spies everywhere. If he thinks you are alone in this world, he'll be more susceptible to telling you information that we can use." At my discouraged expression, Galileo rushed to promise, "I'll be by your side for this entire mission, just in the shadows. You're the only one who knows I'm alive, and for right now, that's in our favor."

"What about Jay?"

"What about him?" Galileo's eyes narrowed.

"Are you going to bring him in? I think he's still in jail, too. I think they got him as an accomplice or something."

Galileo shook his head. "They'll let him go, eventually. I don't want him involved in this, Bria. He's not to know that I'm alive." Galileo's gaze stressed this fact. "The universe has cleaved him from us, and he needs to start his own journey. This mission is too critical for him to be involved."

My lips parted in dismay. "He won't know where to go if his charges are dropped."

"I don't trust him at all," Galileo declared bluntly. "He's too weak to be involved. He has to learn how to stand on his own feet."

Galileo's blunt words stung even though they weren't directed at me. They could have been, though. I had allowed myself to be consumed by my grief and remorse as soon as I accepted the fact that I had become a murderer in a single moment. I had spiraled down a dark hole. Instead of fighting to stay alive, I had struggled to find a way to die, just to end those chaotic thoughts in my mind. I had become weak, pitiful, and suicidal. It had landed me in southern Colorado, locked up in a rubber cell, with only a suicide gown and blanket to keep me company until the next set of psychiatrists appeared. As if he could follow my train of thought, Galileo continued, "You need to get yourself better, too. I can't have you trying to slit your wrists every time you get a pencil or razor. You need to be levelheaded when he comes to get you. Get yourself out of here, back to the jail, and start the process of getting to your trial. We'll see what happens next and go from there. This is going to be a long, grueling chess match between us and him. We're forcing him to make the next move."

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I straightened in my seat; his prep talk greatly improved my focus. "I think having a purpose helps," I agreed. "And knowing that I didn't kill you."

"You didn't kill the others, either." Galileo professed boldly. My heartbeat was thumping against my chest as I stared at him, too afraid to believe him. Too afraid to become too enthralled with the possibility of exoneration.

"The compass rose is in the Denver PD evidence warehouse," I advised. "If you think you need it, or it needs to be moved to a safer place to keep it from him, it's there." I was frightened over the possibility of Galileo getting caught if he tried to steal it. I shoved the fear from my mind.

Galileo smiled a little and shook his head. "We'll keep it there. It's probably safer there, especially if Konstantinos doesn't know where it is."

I milled over another issue in my mind. Galileo waited as I found the words to voice it. "A couple of days ago, I became so out of control that the staff here injected ketamine into me to calm me down. It knocked me out. Yet, it seemed as if my spirit was transported elsewhere. To this new world. There was a guy there. He told me we were in a sanctuary, and he called himself Hawk. Could this be something Zane Konstantinos is trying to manipulate me with? Should I pursue this while I'm incarcerated?" I checked his expression for any confusion; there wasn't any. He understood everything I had just said. He knew exactly what a sanctuary was.

Galileo frowned, a calculating gleam overtaking his gaze. His elbow landed on the table as the same hand supported his chin. He didn't say anything as he quickly evaluated the situation. "If you can, stay with it," Galileo finally said. "Although I'm not too familiar with the sanctuaries, I do know that they are their own form of power. You learning how to manipulate that power could be beneficial down the line. Just be careful—especially since we don't know who this other man is or what his intentions are."

"I will," I confirmed.

Our first meeting ended soon after that. Several more would follow it throughout the years, always tucked in the shadows where most people refused to look. He sent coded messages through the jail system once or twice—usually when I got bored and disheartened waiting for Zane Konstantinos to come back to the chessboard and make his move. After my escape, Galileo scheduled rendezvous around the mage city. I became his own knight to move on the board in the game he was playing with this mysterious Zane Konstantinos, who still hadn't made an appearance. Sometimes, I wondered if Galileo's theory about Konstantinos’s role as the grand puppet master of the mage government wasn't just paranoia.

So, I experienced my first burst of astonishment in a long time when I saw Galileo sharing air on the Amhersts' roof with Metternich.

"Galileo?" I screeched, feigning my surprise.

"It's okay, Bria," Galileo assured as he approached. "He knows everything."

I was unable to release the tension in my fists. "How?" I thought you were supposed to remain inconspicuous until we knew who the masters and puppets were.

"He suspected soon after you arrived in the city."

"I consider myself the guardian of this city. It wasn't difficult to realize that someone else was suddenly lurking around," Metternich said. "I tried to lure him out with the fireworks. I only succeeded in drawing attention to myself by the wrong people—including you and the Amherst girl. After that, Galileo and I warily circled each other for weeks before he came forward and announced exactly who he was. It was before you and I met over Midwinter."

"I still don't know who you are," I confronted warily.

"We have not been properly introduced," Metternich agreed. He straightened from his leaning stance against the retaining wall. I had to blink a couple of times, caught totally off guard by this change of events. The male whom I had met in the sunken castle now stood before me. My knees locked from my anxiety. My mind raced as it attempted to connect all the pieces together. There wasn't enough time and Metternich was soon a couple of feet before me. He slammed his hand over his heart in greeting and bowed his head. The pride and strength in his gaze were potent; he had exhibited none of this at the castle when we had first met. Then, he had been soft-spoken and cautious. "Osiris Metternich, the last remaining prince of the Penderyn line, leader of the Resistance."

My jaw locked. My gaze was frozen on the Penderyn Prince's face. He settled in one of the chairs on the deck. "You must have a lot of questions," he commented when I didn't say anything.

I shook my head, not knowing where to start. My thoughts were in a jumbled mess as I stared at the Penderyn Prince, illuminated by the ambient lighting. "How are you related to the Penderyn line?" was the first question I forced out.

"I was a first cousin to the girls, the princesses."

I unlocked my jaw. "Why don't you simply take back the throne and rise to power? You're the Penderyn Prince. You must have some type of influence, especially with the Resistance." I bit my bottom lip as multiple questions and unknowns stopped me from saying more. At this point, I wasn't even sure how large the Resistance was. I wasn't sure of how much of a grasp Zane Konstantinos had on the mage government—if he even did. I still lacked substantial evidence confirming Galileo's theory was true.

Metternich's expression remained neutral. "Do you not know what happened to the royal family?"

"They were assassinated, right?"

"Do you know by whom?" Metternich quizzed. He leaned forward in his seat and set his chin on top of his fist.

My head tilted. "Macaila's parents told me Konstantinos ordered it after he escaped Caligo."

Metternich nodded. "Yes, and a day later, the entire royal family, except for me, was assassinated. All in one sweep. The main family was attacked in the castle. Somehow, the assassins got past the castle guards, who were supposed to be the best. How remains a mystery to this day. There were enough assassins sent out to exterminate the entire family tree that spanned across the globe. Fortunately for me, I was somewhere the assassins couldn't get to. I returned as soon as I got word about what had happened—after taking precautions and faking my death. Those snakes in South America can be venomous, especially when you mistakenly step in their nests.

"When I returned to Astraera, I knew something had gone amiss. It was months after the assassinations, and I didn't dare believe that the danger had passed. I returned under secrecy and kept to the shadows. Everything had returned to normalcy. Before my return, the Senate had voted that the royal institution was obsolete and unnecessary. The castle had sunk on its own, rumor being that too much blood weighted it down. The Senate and chancellor elections were just underway. The political climate was as you'd expect: two parties bickering back and forth in the effort to get their candidate in the position of power. But you learn things when you're hiding the shadows, observing and not talking. I started to suspect that Zane Konstantinos had found his way into the Senate or the chancellor's office. It is for that reason alone that I reactivated the Resistance."

I exchanged a glance with Galileo. "That's not the first time I've heard that theory."

Metternich nodded. "I know. It was one of the first things Galileo and I discussed when we finally spoke."

I blew out a large breath through my lips before moving to claim one of the seats. "I know I haven't been in Astraera as long as you have... in the time that I have, I have been able to talk to Sebastien. He's taken an interest in my learning, and I've been helping him find the Instruments of Korre. Since Galileo thought the same thing you do, during this time, I've been trying to find indicators he's associated with the lunatic. There haven't been any. He's just adamantly focused on the bringing in the paradise."

"Can we agree on one thing, though?" Metternich inquired. "Wisdom is dangerous, is it not?"

"It can be," I hedged, thrown by this sudden shift in conversation.

"We would be fools if we thought for one moment that Zane Konstantinos did not possess the capability for such wisdom," Metternich lectured. "When he and your mother first started out, they were overzealous. They stood on street corners and preached to anyone who would listen to eighteen-year-olds' political ideologies. That’s not to say that they didn’t get quite a few followers and mentorships. Oh, they did, and they staged several protests—not all peaceful—in Astraera. While Konstantinos may have thought he had the voice of the people, he did not have the voice of power; that rested in the dynasty’s hands and Senate. He knew he lacked power to make his ideologies a part of the mage government. Some say that is why he started to study the shadows and demonology. To achieve that power.

"Alas, he was caught and sentenced to life in prison. He knew enough to break out of that life sentence, only to never be seen again," Metternich continued. "The guards at Caligo the night he escaped were all interviewed. As Konstantinos was kept in solitary confinement, they were the only ones who could be interviewed. The guards stated they were unaware of his ability to escape, and to this day, no one knows how he did it. The prison shuts down magic."

"Everyone described him as being extroverted and passionate. Then why hasn't he been seen since he broke out of Caligo? It seems like being doomed to living a life in shadows like you two are doing right now would be a prison sentence all by itself for him." I pointed out with an eyebrow raise.

"Exactly. The eighteen-year-old Konstantinos would be bragging to someone about his success. He would be back on the street corner, preaching he had done something no one had ever done before. Yet, like you said, he hasn't been seen. So where is he?" Metternich prompted.

Despite the shivers tingling down my spine over what he was suggesting, I answered with my own question. "Why can't you believe that my mother was successful in her quest to defeat him?" I cast the question out to both Galileo and Metternich, almost pleading. Please don't let her death be in vain.

"There’s suspicious activity occurring in the government if you know where to look. For instance, the attack on the castle the night you arrived? The one the government claimed was conducted by the Resistance? The Resistance was not involved in any of it."

I was immediately taken aback by this declaration. "What about the masked man who stole the erion feed and declared it was?" I protested.

"Not us," Metternich denied. "Not the Resistance."

"Who then?"

A small, tight smile crept across his face. "I personally believe that the government themselves sanctioned the attack and declared it was the Resistance in order to keep eyes from looking too closely at them."

"Look at who was killed that evening," Galileo added. "Every single senator who was killed that night was from the same political party."

If what Metternich and Galileo said was true, then the implications would be too frightening to even consider. I quickly reviewed my memories of that night. I had been there, eating dinner with people had been oblivious to death's shadows lingering over them. Yet, there were murderers at that dinner table as well, if the attack had been staged by government members. When the incident erupted, I had been talking to Jay in front of the castle. The smoke and pandemonium concealed too much in the dining room, and then I had been a victim of a remaining explosive. Within those memories, I tried to find something, a clue to indicate the truth behind what was being said.

"What better way to destroy your enemies than killing them and framing a group of rebels?" Metternich tilted his head in challenge. I couldn't find fault with his reasoning, and thus ventured down another avenue of questioning.

"Why hasn't the Resistance taken action? While you're sitting here, having meetings, the government is preparing for the eventual unity of the entire universe."

"I want more information."

"That's why you have brought me in, isn't it?" I sighed.

Metternich nodded. "We've tried to infiltrate the offices. It’s impossible, as they are tightly sealed. We've had meager success with plants throughout the city, although nothing major. I have ears like your friends in bars. The soldiers don't know too much, while those who do don't venture out into the city. They have the entertainment brought to them in their own residences. For now, we have the time to do our due diligence. I'd rather have the plan we formulate be successful at decapitating the beast; otherwise, we risk just annoying it with tiny slaps that do absolutely nothing. I want our first attack to be our only attack. I know Galileo has already established you as a double agent, and cleverly so. I don't want to change anything with that."

"I can try to get you information," I accepted. "I'm sure Galileo has told you everything already."

Galileo nodded in confirmation.

Metternich's eyes peered into mine. "Just do what you can."

I leaned back in my seat. "If I do find something major, how do you plan on stopping the mage government? They have an entire military force on their side. I'm quite certain they brainwash their soldiers into fervent loyalty," I quipped, thinking about Jay and the faerie drug he was addicted to.

"We have enough people loyal to the Resistance that we can launch a guerrilla attack and tear the entire organization down if we know where to strike," Metternich confirmed. He settled his arms on the chair. "For everyone's safety, in case one of them gets brought in for questioning, I refuse to reveal members' identities. I meet with everyone in small groups or individually if something comes up." He reached into his pocket.

"On the off chance that Sebastien discovers more Resistance members? Like those five he hung for treason a couple of months ago?"

"Exactly." Metternich nodded and withdrew his hand. His fingers were folded up over something in his palm. "Their deaths were tragic. We did our best to free them. There was just too much evidence of their membership that they were doomed from the discovery. This is one reason why I have kept every member sequestered into a particular group. The fewer people implicated, should someone be accused of treason or should someone betray us, the better. Your group will be with the Amhersts."

Metternich stretched out his arm in between us and opened his fingers to reveal a solid silver pocket watch sitting in his palm. Hesitantly, I took it. The lighting was too minimal that it was impossible to see the details on the watch. "This is how I will communicate with you, to let you know when I need to meet with you. When I send a message over it, the clock's hands will change to relate the time and place of the meeting."

I squeezed my fingers over the watch. Just like that, it seemed as if I had been inducted as a part of the Resistance. "Are you the only one who knows who every single Resistance member is?" I inquired.

"I am," Metternich confirmed.

I bit my lip. "Is Galileo going to be put into some group as well?" As much as I tried to conceal my discontent, it still seeped through.

"Galileo hasn't been around long enough to learn who has pledged alliance to the Resistance," Metternich declared. My lips pressed tightly together, and it felt as if my jaw had locked rigid.

"That's not really my focus right now either," Galileo answered. "You know that my focus has always been to stop the darkness from dominating the world. Metternich knows who our army consists of and manages them. I'm much better at strategy and planning our next moves than people management."

I retreated inside of myself. I didn't like that Galileo lacked information about who the other members were. He had proven himself trustworthy. He was in a similar position as Metternich. Everyone believed he was dead. If anything, being oblivious to the inner workings of the Resistance placed us at a disadvantage. "And what are our next steps?" I inquired through the blockage in my throat.

"Perhaps give us one of the instruments when you get it," Galileo suggested. I had been keeping him informed of my assignments. "Until we really know for sure that the instruments are truly for Aurora’s paradise, I'm reluctant to give the government a full monopoly over them."

"You'll get the next one," I agreed.

"One of our members also came forward with a possible solution to your magic," Metternich informed. "She has suggested an ancient test to determine your affinity. Apparently, it's rather painful. I think it’s worth it: if we can learn which affinity you have, it could lead to you being able to control your magic."

I agreed to the test despite my lack of confidence in it. Soon after that, Metternich took his leave from the Amhersts' rooftop patio after saying his farewells. It left Galileo and me alone. I waited until I could no longer hear Metternich's descending footsteps before turning towards Galileo. I was careful to keep my voice at a lower volume as to not be overheard. "I thought you were going to remain inconspicuous."

"I am being inconspicuous," Galileo claimed.

My teeth gritted together. I was sure that Galileo could see the whites of my eyes when I said, "Not when you have just revealed your identity to another person."

"Bria, he's fine. He won’t betray me." Galileo waved away my concerns.

"You told me you were concerned that you couldn't trust anyone here, and it was best that no one knew you were alive. I thought that Resistance leaders fell underneath that anyone definition."

"I trust him," Galileo returned just as passionately.

"I hope you don't live to regret that statement."

Because at this point, I didn't trust anyone.