Four flights of stairs after he had seen Russell, Lewis found himself facing the door to Christine's office. Knocking on the door, he paused, listening for anyone who might be inside. When there was no response, he turned the handle. To his surprise, the door opened to reveal a dark room. The door hadn't even opened fully when a horrific smell met his nostrils, forcing him to let go of the handle and clap his hands over his nose.

'What on earth?' he muttered; his voice muffled by his hands. He knew he shouldn't be going into Christine's office when she wasn't there, and the urge to throw up added to that belief, but still, curiosity got the better of him.

As he stepped over the threshold, torches flared into life around the room. The first thing he saw was the thick layer of dust on Christine's desk; the second thing made him recoil with a shout. Slumped in the chair behind the desk was Christine, her face pale and disfigured by decomposition.

'Christine?' he asked, unsure why he was bothering. From somewhere out of sight, there was a grunt. Lewis realised it had come from behind the desk when he heard it again.

With his hands still firmly over his nose, he hurried across the room, his footsteps muffled slightly by the layer of dust on the stone floor. The closer he got, the worse the smell was. How had no one noticed the smell when they were passing by? Rounding the desk, he saw Olivia wriggling desperately on the floor, her hands and ankles both bound by thick ropes, and a piece of cloth tied around her mouth in an attempt to silence her. Rolling her on her back, he pulled the cloth away.

'Help me,' she begged when she saw him.

'What happened?' he asked as he began untying the rope around her wrists.

'Ellen,' she said bluntly. 'How did you find me?'

Russell said you didn't turn up for his lesson. He had a vision of you lying on the floor in a dark room,' Lewis explained. 'I was going to go to Edward, but I didn't know where to find him, and Christine was the only other person I could think of.'

Nodding, she sat up when he pulled the rope off her wrists, working on the one at her ankles by herself. 'I can't believe you found me. I thought she was going to leave me here to be another rotting corpse.'

'How did you get here in the first place?'

'Veronica told me that Christine wanted to see me. When I got here, Ellen ambushed me,' Olivia said. 'She hit me over the head with something and tied me up. I thought she was going to kill me.'

'Why would she do this, though?' he asked, helping her up. Pulling her arm around his shoulders, he supported her as she walked unsteadily.

'She's one of them. I knew it the moment you showed me that book. I should have gone to Christine as soon as we got back, but I was too scared,' Olivia said, hitting her head with her hand in frustration.

'One of who?" What was the book?' Lewis asked.

'We need to get out of the tower, right now! You're in danger, Cassandra, and Russell as well,' Olivia insisted.

'What about the bond? Could she have killed Emily already?' Lewis demanded. Surely she would kill him if he hadn't already.

'No.'

'How do you know?'

'She's still alive. The only way for Ellen to kill Emily is by killing herself,' Olivia said. 'It's what makes the bond so powerful; you have to be willing to die to make it.'

'But if she finds out that we're gone, then she'll kill herself and Emily,' Lewis said.

'You need to break the bond,' Olivia said as he helped her down the stairs. She had become weak after being left to die for a day.

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'How?'

'Only you can work it out.'

'But I can barely light a candle with my powers,' Lewis said. Without Edward, he wouldn't even have been able to do that. How was he supposed to break a bond powerful enough to extinguish a life?

'It isn't about what you can do with your powers; it is how you do it,' she said.

'What?'

'Your emotions. That is what controls your power. When you control your emotions, you control the source of your power,' Olivia said. 'Go left; it's quicker.'

Turning left at the bottom of the stairs instead of right, he adjusted his grip. He was practically carrying her now in an attempt to get to the garden and Russell faster. 'That's what everyone keeps telling me!' Lewis shouted in frustration. 'It doesn't work.'

'Not those emotions, the deeper ones,' she said. 'Fear. Love. Anger. The sense of belonging worked for me.'

'Well, belonging sure as hell won't work for me,' Lewis muttered darkly. 'How will I know if it works?'

'You'll know,' she insisted as he opened the door to the garden. 'What are we doing here?'

'Russel said he was coming here after he told me about what he had seen,' Lewis said. 'Russel, where are you?' he shouted as the pair of them stumbled down the pathway.

'Lewis?' he replied, his voice drifting between the trees.

'You were right! I found her,' he said as Russell appeared on the path in front of them.

'Olivia, are you alright?' he asked worriedly as he rushed over to them, taking her weight from Lewis.

'We need to get away from the tower tonight!' Olivia said. 'Ellen is one of them.'

'One of whom?" Russell asked, repeating Lewis' earlier question.

'The Dusk.'

'I thought they were a myth repeated to stop students from using their powers for bad things,' he said.

'No, she has one of the books.'

Before Lewis could ask who The Dusk were, someone started clapping. From among the shrubbery behind Russell, Veronica appeared. A moment later, Ellen appeared, Cassandra held in chains between her and a man Lewis recognised as the one who had interrupted his first lesson with Veronica.

'Well done, Olivia. I always knew you were intelligent,' Veronica said as she moved forward. 'Not intelligent enough, it would seem, though.'

'How many are there?' Olivia demanded.

'More than you think,' Veronica replied.

'You won't get away with this. The others will suspect something is wrong,' said Olivia, lifting her weight off of Russell so that she stood by herself.

'No, they won't. Christine has been dead for nearly three weeks, and no one has questioned her disappearance. No one will question yours either. Any of you.'

'They might not miss me, Russell, or Cassandra, but they'll know if Lewis is gone,' she said. 'Do you know what they call him? The True Precursor!'

'I know what they call him,' Veronica snapped. 'We have a way to deal with that, though.'

'You can't make someone just vanish from the memories of every person in this tower,' Olivia said. 'Unless...'

'Well done! I knew you would get there in the end,' Veronica laughed. Behind her, Ellen and the man let out a chuckle.

'Wait, what's she going to do?' Cassandra asked, trying to free herself from their grip.

'When a precursor dies, their power becomes uncontainable, and their body bursts into flames. There is nothing left but the memory of them,' Olivia said. 'You wouldn't. Tell me you wouldn't!'

'She wouldn't do what?' Lewis demanded.

'Death destroys a precursor's body, but it doesn't destroy their soul or their memory. There's only one way to do that. The Fires of Creation

'Very good,' Veronica said.

'What are The Fires of Creation?' Lewis asked, looking between Veronica and Olivia. Apart from Cassandra, who looked blankly back at him, everyone else who stood there seemed to know what was going on.

'The powers of a precursor run through their veins like fire. The power is fire,' Veronica explained. 'The Fires of Creation create the soul of a precursor; they are also the only thing capable of destroying it. and we just happen to be standing right on top of it. That is why the tower was built here. This is the birthplace of the precursors.'

'Do you have any idea what this could do?' Olivia shouted. 'You throw him in there, and you will destroy everything. Every single thing.'

'I've seen him in his lessons; he can barely light a candle. There is almost no power inside him at all. He's basically a filthy human like the rest of them, like this one,' Ellen snapped, grabbing Cassandra by the hair roughly.

'Let her go. She has nothing to do with this, and you know it!' Lewis said, pushing past Olivia as he tried to get to Cassandra.

'I don't think so,' Veronica hissed. A moment later, his knees buckled under the pain as a burning chain was pulled tight around his neck. 'We've wasted more than enough time here. Secure the other two. I want to deal with this one myself.'

'Run!' Lewis shouted, twisting to look at Olivia and Russell as the chain pulled against his neck, burning deeper into his skin.

His shout was in vain, though. They hadn't even taken half a dozen steps towards the door when three people in black cloaks jumped out of the bushes, piling on top of Olivia and Russell. Beneath them, Lewis heard Olivia's muffled screams as they bound her hands with burning chains. Despite being forced into chains as well, Russell just lay there, his eyes focused vacantly on Lewis.

'The first child born to the second wife will be the vessel. If the child lives, the powers of the divine will rain down upon the world until nothing remains but ash,' Russell rasped. For several seconds, he continued to stare blankly at Lewis before he blinked, looking around wildly as if he had suddenly appeared in the garden from somewhere else.