Disrespectful or not, scared or not, Faust wanted answers. He was the Monsignor of the seminary. The title alone gave him audacity the likes of which simple magi did not have. “Is he yours?”

Jabari’s eyes left him, returned to whatever he watched beyond him. “Explain.”

“The boy. Seth. Is he your child?”

“No.”

“Is he related to you by blood in anyway?”

“No.”

Faust scratched the itch behind his beard, hoping the man would notice and say something.

He did not. And if he noticed, he did not show it.

“Would you like to know how he’s been doing?” he tried at a conversation again.

Again the man’s answer was simple, concise. “No.”

“Are you sure the seminary is the right fit for him, though? He’s been struggling with the activities, getting along poorly with his mates. He barely made it through the last test we had.”

Jabari nodded, the action slow. “Of what point is the struggling one if he does not struggle. It is how he will grow. It is how he will evolve.”

“The struggling one?” Faust’s face wrinkled in confusion. “What exactly does that mean?”

“It means what it says.” Jabari still did not look at him.

He slid one of his hands into his cassock, a frock so black Faust had difficulty keeping his eyes on it in the dark even with his Baron sight. Its edges seemed to blend into the night, reflecting none of the starlight granted them. It reminded him eerily of the seminary walls, its pitch black defiance against natural light, and he wondered if it would reflect any other type of light.

“You have just concluded your test of winter,” Jabari said, slow and absolute.

“Yes.”

“Which means there are children deserving of fragments. Tell me, how may have earned their black fragments?”

“Two.”

Jabari’s gaze slid to Faust once more and the Monsignor added. “Seth and a child named Forlorn.”

Something passed Jabari’s eyes that looked like recognition. Did the man know the failed noble? Did he know the bastard child who did not even know himself? The look was gone before he could even decipher it. Then the man removed his hand from his cassock and held it out to him.

Faust reached for it. “For Seth?” he asked, taking its contents.

Jabari shook his head as Faust looked at what he had taken and deflated. They were soul fragments, four of them. But where he had expected black fragments, he saw simple ones of mundane color. They were nothing special.

“For Forlorn?” he ventured.

Again, Jabari shook his head. “For the one they call Barnabas.”

“May I ask how you know the boy?”

“He is a seminarian fighting battles no soul mage of his potential should have to fight. Chances are he will not survive them. This will at least give him a fighting chance.”

“And Seth?”

“A child that can learn a few things from the seminary.”

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“A few?” Faust frowned, insulted on behalf of the seminary.

“Your institution cannot hope to teach the boy even half of what he needs to learn.” Jabari did not even deign to look at him. “Your institution is merely there to teach him the basics. It is not old enough to teach him much else. And even that will not be enough. Your basics will not be enough.”

“And you think there is another place better?”

“Yes. Countless. Better, and much older.” He blinked so suddenly Faust found himself wondering if it was the first time the man was blinking since their meeting. “Your institute will suffice to teach him a little of the elementary,” he continued, voice deep and ever slow, “but it will not suffice to teach him all of it. But that much should be enough. For now.”

Faust was scared of his next question but knew he had to ask them. Something in the way the man spoke of the child’s growth scared him. So for the sake of the child, he asked: “And what do you intend for the boy?”

“Much more than this,” Jabari answered.

“For what reason? To serve you? And who do you serve in return? Who guides you to do these things; to meddle in the affairs of a child so young?” Faust knew the hypocrisy in his words but could not stop himself from uttering them.

“Me?” the man asked. “I serve no one.”

A realization hit Faust like cold water in winter. It made him wonder how many children the man had planted in different organizations across the world. He undoubtedly had enough within the different governments, considering every organization had at least one spy in them. After this conversation he would need to talk to his contacts, warm them. Did the man have children hidden within the world government, too?

Was ‘hidden’ even the right word? Did he offer them incentives to care for the children he gave them just as he did him?

But his request was that I make life as hard for Seth as I can, he thought. Is he raising a following far more superior to even priests? What of the convent? He gasped, drawing a touch of Jabari’s attention. What of the Vatican?!

“You’ve begun speculating the unnecessary,” Jabari said. “You have a single question left. Ask it for the sake of your curiosity and end your speculations.”

Faust knew his question. Knew how best to pose it. Unfortunately, he could not have the man thinking he did not trust him. He did not need the man suspecting he had any form of realization. That alone would rock the seminary, rock him as well. So, thinking as best he could, he asked, “You answer to no one, so will the child answer to you?”

“My intent is that the child will learn to answer only to himself.”

Faust’s eyes widened in horror. A child with all the training the seminary had to offer, and more, answering to himself. All that power unchecked. It was terrifying. The possibility of countless children trained under countless organizations answering only to themselves individually was… it was… the word plagued his mind until it touched the tip of his tongue and he could not stop himself from uttering it.

“…Chaos.”

“Understandably so,” Jabari agreed.

Faust shook away the fog in his head at the thought. “Understandably so?!” he challenged. “It will be complete anarchy. Total chaos. It is ludicrous.”

“Have a little faith in the boy, Priest. You do have a hand in his upbringing, after all. Besides, you say this because you do not understand the scope of what he will face in the end. You cannot. He will have to answer only to himself if he is to face that fate. If he is to live long enough to face it, at all.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

When he spoke again, his final words were said without looking back. “I will come for the child you call Seth during his test of Iron. It would be in everyone’s best interest if I am not met with the thought of resistance from the seminary.”

Faust’s thoughts released him, melted away like webs in flames. Even now, long removed from the man’s presence, the thought of him still sent tremors through his very core. He had met powerful men before; men he would not want to fight. Even as the blood baron his predecessor was at the top of the list. But the man named Jabari was not on it. The list did not suffice to quantify or qualify how much he did not want to ever be on the wrong side of the man. Still, he feared such a day would come.

The man had not once unveiled his core since the first day he’d met the man. He’d never revealed his spirit, never cycled his reia. At least, not in his presence. Yet he could not fathom a day when he would be able to face the man. Whatever authority the man possessed, it was not that of a Herald.

Jabari remained the only reason he continued to believe there remained an authority beyond Heraldry. Nothing else explained it, and to have gotten to that point within forty years was a feat beyond impressive. Just what did he have to face to get so strong?

“So what now?” John asked. “Are we expecting something to happen to the child?”

“We are,” Faust answered, eyes closed in contemplation.

“And should we be worried?”

Faust shook his head. Everything Jabari had said implied too many great plans for the child. The child would definitely return to them.

But how powerful will he be?

The thought brought a new meaning to John’s question. The boy would come back alive, that much was true. But would the seminary be able to control whatever he becomes during the time he would be gone?

It made the question heavier; all the more powerful. He forgot the necrosis of his neck, rested his elbows on his desk of deep mahogany, and buried his face in his hands. John had never asked a more important question…

Should they be worried?