The Septstorm raged. Riven, Viriya, and Rose had paused at the main door of the inn, watching the chaos of the storm rule the world outside. If it had seemed bad from the second-floor window Riven had spied the storm through, it was infinitely worse up close.
“You’re going to get my entrance ruined,” the innkeeper bemoaned from the back.
They ignored him. His tiny pleas were nothing compared to the sheer scale of the chaos of the Septstorm. Sept was falling everywhere, a barrage of golden stars from the heavens as though the Scions were enraged and was taking their anger out on the mortal world. The street was lined with fractures everywhere, cracks and pits opening up as though the place was turning into the untamed ground of the wilderness. Windows were smashed, streetlamps vandalized with dents, scratches, and pockmarks, walls graffitied with pieces of Sept that had stuck in the cracks they had made. And the storm still rampaged on, unrelenting till the whole world was destroyed.
How in the world were they supposed to go out in that? How had the Spectre gone out?
“Do you know where the Spectre went?” Riven asked Rose.
She shook her head. “The chauffeur only sent a flash post saying his car was empty. He’s got no clue where she might have gone, and no amount of money is going to make him go look.”
“What if his car was getting too damaged, and she ran off to shelter?”
“Couldn’t be. His car is sturdy enough to last through most of the storm so long as its chassis is still mostly intact. Anyone inside it would easily survive.”
“And yet, he wasn’t in it.”
Rose shrugged. “Clearly, he’s not the brave type.”
“How do you know his car would survive then?”
“I like looking at cars. Researching them, seeing how they perform in different conditions, and so on.”
“Where do we need to go?” Viriya asked, interrupting Riven’s pointless questions.
“We need to circle around and find Arrilme soon. Can’t have her complicating matters even worse than they already are.”
Riven stepped back as Sept fell near his legs. “How are we going to get out in this mess?”
“Do you have storm umbrellas?” Rose asked the caretaker.
The man only shook his head.
Rose sighed, then looked at Riven with an apologetic smile. Riven frowned back for a moment before his eyes widened. Did she mean for him to use his Essence? Her grin was all the answer Riven would ever need. Damn it. Yes his Essence had shielding capabilities, but how was he supposed to protect them all from a Septstorm?
“Can you do it, Riven?” Rose asked, her tone leaving no doubt the whole plan hinged on him being able to do it all. “We’re going to have to stick together for this, though I know spreading out would help us cover ground faster. But in truth, she can’t have gone far in this condition, so we just need to make sure we check every shelter along the way.”
Riven sighed. He was going to have to do something like this anyway. Damn Septstorm couldn’t find a better day to descend onto the mortal realm. “Fine, I’ll do it.”
“Excellent.” Rose clapped her hands, less in applause and more as a signal to get going. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
Riven scowled at her encouraging smile, then stepped forward a little. Survival. It would be easy to bring out his Sept after his little training session back in the greenhouse, but maybe he could use this as an opportunity to control what exactly his Essence did for once.
The Sept was bouncing from the ground, hitting the ground with small but loud taps then shooting away in other directions. They hit his legs, striking his boots hard enough to scratch the hardened leather. If he went in unprotected now, he’d be shot through and eviscerated like a scarecrow in front of bullets. He needed armour. But air again? No, that could happen on its own without any direction from him.
Riven took a deep breath, and focused. Survival. That was what he needed right now. Survival from the Sept all around him, and what better was there to protect himself from the Sept than more Sept? He had left the Sept crystal behind in the rush, which was a good thing. His Essence wasn’t going to get blocked.
He took a step forward, stretching a hand out into the storm. Hadn’t he decided he needed to face the true fear of death? Even as his fingers neared the open air where the Sept crashed in, the familiar pressure shot up. He froze gritting his teeth and clamping down on the pressure, refusing it let burst free and do whatever it wished. It made him tremble as though he had a current flowing through him, a livewire replacing his veins and lightning overtaking his blood.
Sept caught his eye. Golden, glittering, shining bright as stars everywhere. That’s where his pressure needed to be, his Essence had to go, and Riven released it all.
Golden lines shot out in a thousand threads, each wrapping around a Sept piece and drawing it to Riven. The threads coalesced into a pattern over him, sewing the bits of Sept into a cloak over his head like archaic chain mail. Riven stepped out under his new shield. Pressure was still spiking out from his skin like perpetual goosebumps and if the lines hadn’t been that shimmering auric shade, he’d scowl at the impression that he was pissing out of everywhere.
The cloak spread out all around him in the air, Sept shattering on it with a thousand blows, some no more than taps and others worse than sledgehammer blows. Rose and Viriya joined him, staring up at his Essence shield.
“You’re getting better,” Viriya noted.
“Thanks to you,” Riven said.
She nodded at him, little smile hooking the corner of her lips up.
Rose stepped forward. “Let’s go, then.”
They started walking, heading down through a street on their left as the storm tore at everything. Riven held himself back a little, allowing Rose to go ahead and Viriya to catch up to him. He kept an eye out for cracks along the ground, especially deeper ones that could trip and make him fall.
“Do we tell Rose about our plans?” he asked Viriya.
She took a moment to consider. “Whose side do you think she’d fall on?”
Riven wanted to come out and say that of course she’d trust him more than Tam. That she would take his word over some stupid orders, that she’d see his side of things and realize, just as Viriya had done, that they needed to do what was right, not necessarily what had been ordered. But he couldn’t. Faith he had in Rose aplenty, but that didn’t always translate to certainty. “I honestly don’t know. I hope she’d understand, but, well, not sure.”
“It’s worth bringing her on our side though. Her connections to the research facility could be very handy.”
“Connections?”
“Yes. She has strong ties to some of the researchers there, and I think she assisted in some of the field operations as well. She’s quite intimately tied to the process.”
Riven pursed his lips. Rose had neglected to mention that when he’d brought up the idea of the research facility back when she was bedridden in the hospital. “Weren’t you part of it as well?”
“A few, select field excursions that needed Essentier assistance and that’s it. I don’t really know what’s going on in there.”
Riven tutted. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Viriya? Your wonder?”
“Dead, buried somewhere back alongside my sense of humour.”
Riven laughed at that. He still marvelled at the fact that she was so ready to throw away her carefully-built reputation over the last few years or even longer. The Prodigy of Providence ready to shatter all the trust she’d built up just to help a demon and a Spectre, enemies of Essentiers everywhere. Maybe, Riven could help with that somehow when the time came.
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Rose took them down several more streets, and every once in a while, she stopped to check under shelters. Both artificial—the eaves of buildings, under arches and shades, and in thin alleyways between cramped buildings—and the few natural ones—in the lee of rises and under lone Coral trees. No sign of the Spectre anywhere. Rose didn’t hesitate or seem frustrated. It occurred to Riven that she had a plan, taking a careful route mapped out in her head. They were tracing their path back to the chauffeur, for that was where Arrilme had last been seen.
“There!” Viriya said all of a sudden. She pointed to a small jewellery store where Arrilme was looking out through the front door, face pressed against the glass.
Rose paused, then quickly jerked to one side of the road so they couldn’t be spotted. Riven hurried to keep up. Couldn’t she warn him before making sudden moves like that? There was no point to his Essence and shield if she dove out of it by herself.
“Can you raise it higher?” Rose pointed to the cloak of Sept held together by golden thread.
“Hmm, let me try.” Riven closed his eyes, and focused. Good, he was getting more practice. Higher. Higher for Riven’s survival, for Rose’s and for Arrilme’s as well. The flow of pressure out of him spiked. When he opened his eyes, the golden threads had increased and the shield was higher up in the air, closer to the cloudy heavens so Riven could no longer touch it by jumping. “Done.”
“Perfect. Now she won’t see us coming.”
Rose crept forwards, crouched forwards to keep her profile low. It seemed silly, but Riven followed her, as did Viriya. As soon as his Sept-and-Essence shield went past the doorway of the store, Rose shot forward and stationed herself right in front of the entrance.
Arrilme’s shriek of surprise was dulled. She stumbled back, and Rose tried the door. It was unlocked.
“Hello, Arrilme,” Rose said with a wide smile. “What a surprise seeing you here! I didn’t know you were so fond of earrings like myself.”
Riven let Viriya enter as well, before closing his eyes. Safe. The store would protect him from the worst of the storm. His Essence died, and as a small shower of now-dead Sept fell all over him, he rushed into the store and closed the door behind him. Damn, that was close.
He took in the store quickly. It was deserted and dark, but the earrings in their glass cases on rows after rows of shelves gleamed, gemstones twinkling like an array of multihued stars. They were all carefully balanced too. The hammering of the Septstorm made them all shake gently in place. He blinked at his sister. When was the last time he had seen Rose wear earrings?
“How did you find me?” Arrilme asked shakily, pulling herself to her feet. Her voice wasn’t the only thing trembling. She shook all over, limbs tucked close to each other in a fruitless effort to stave off her quaking. Wounds pockmarked her all over, bleeding a slow trickle of Sept.
“We checked everywhere. It wasn’t easy. But the important question is, why did you run away?”
“My son!” A little bit of steel crept into her voice, and her shaking lessened. “I heard he’s escaped and you didn’t think to inform me. You lied, and said he was fine. I trusted you and yet—”
Arrilme had more choice words for them, but it was clear she was restraining herself. She didn’t need to say anything worse. You lied kept swirling in Riven’s head, gonging like a funeral bell, thundering worse than the Septstorm outside. He had lied. Even if it wasn’t directly, for Rose was the one who had informed her to keep her calm, he had allowed it. He was a participant by enabling without question.
“We are working on it,” Rose said. “This overreaction was why we kept it from you in the first place.”
“Are you? So tell me then, where is my son? Do you have any idea where he went, or do you simply mean to stand back and let others capture him, and you can sit back, relax, and calmly inform me you failed despite your best efforts.”
“I understand you’re a little agitated right now, Arrilme, but anger won’t help anything. You have to trust us. We’re trying to help.”
Trying to help. Riven glanced at Viriya, heart doing a pitter-patter to see that she was looking back at him with the same expression he must have been wearing too. Rose could be on their side as well.
“Arrilme,” Riven said. “Do you know where Franry is?”
The Spectre tore her gaze from Rose to face Riven. “Well, I don’t know. But I think he might have gone looking for me at our old home. Poor boy was so fond of the place.”
Riven glanced at Rose but she didn’t say anything, and he took that as a sign to proceed. He had been given silent permission to continue. “Can you take us there?”
It was Arrilme’s turn to seek tacit permission from Rose, who only gave a terse nod. “I can, of course. But the storm makes it difficult.”
Riven smiled. “Leave that to me.”
#
Arrilme’s house wasn’t far from the jewellery shop. It was almost as if Providence city pretended to be big but was in truth not much larger than a sprawling town.
Riven slowed the closer they got to their destination, which was easily perceptible in the way the Spectre’s voice changed when they talked. She spoke low in the beginning, the words coming dull and emotionless as though she was reading drivel off an obligatory premade speech. But it grew warmer the farther they went. Soon enough, she was breathless, nearly bouncing on her heels, her shimmering outline jagged and spiky as though she was about to transform into a Phantom any moment now. Though now that Riven thought on it, he had no real clue on how they transformed from one stage to the other.
“It’s just down this street, and past the next intersection,” Arrilme said. “Franry might be around here somewhere.”
Rose was staring everywhere, though her features were clouded with a frown. “Don’t know about your son, but I can assure you there will be guards. Probably another Essentier too.”
They all kept an eye out after that. Riven wanted to draw in his Essence shield so that they didn’t sick out as much. Anyone from leagues away could tell there was something quite odd about a handful of people unaffected by the storming Sept. He had no time to focus though. Everywhere he looked, the shadows drew his eyes, the falling, glittering dust tricking him into thinking he might have missed something. Stupid, really. Neither the city guards nor Tam would be hiding for anything.
Unless…
“Could it be a trap?” Riven asked, stopping. He looked around everywhere, heart thudding loud in his ribcage.
The others had paused as well. Every eye stared into a shadow, a forlorn window, a hidden alley, or some other dark corner that screeched out that something was hidden in their depths.
“Shouldn’t be,” Rose said. “They can’t protect themselves from the Septstorm like us.”
Viriya, keen-eyed as ever, waved her hand at the rest of them. She pointed down the street, where two guards were hiding under the arch in front of a house, sheltering from the storm. They were whispering together, their words overridden by the raging storm’s deafening roar.
“You stay here,” Rose ordered. “I’ll go talk to them.”
“You can’t go anywhere without my help,” Riven pointed out.
Rose smiled at him, a little grin that reminded him she was an Essentier too. “You forget, little brother, that I am quite capable as you.” She closed her eyes, and the air shifted around her, spinning like a fan. Bits of Sept got caught in the flow and started to circulate her. “If, perhaps, not as streamlined as you are.”
Riven bit his tongue from saying anything too awful. He wished he could be confident that she would survive thanks to her powers, but it seemed too much of a long shot.
Rose stepped out anyway. The Sept raining down swerved away when it came close enough to hit her, her field of gravity diverting them everywhere else but her. A few got caught in her pull, orbiting like planets to a star, but most veered off course. She strode forward, taking the guards by surprise as she approached.
She had barely started talking with the guards in the distance when footsteps came in from behind. “Ah! It looks like you’ve done half the job already!”
They turned to see the approaching newcomer. Tam. The moustached man was holding a metal storm umbrella over his head, Sept pinging off with the sound of a hundred little pins and needles clashing. Riven growled, letting loose a quiet curse. They were too late yet again. When would he stop being late to everything?
“Do you want to give up the demon into our custody?” Tam asked.
Riven was nonplussed, heart refusing to stop distracting him with its loud pomposity. “Er…”
Thankfully, Viriya stepped in. “We caught this one earlier in the day and thought she might lead us to the demon. And now she’s brought us here. How did you get to this place?”
There was a hint of disdain in her voice, like she was disappointed she had caught them here, stealing her glory.
“We found it via interrogating the orphanage. Creepy place that one. They told us who exactly the demon was, and where he used to reside before he was brought to the orphanage.” He glanced at the Spectre who was trying very hard not to cower before the open hostility. “Just like her.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Riven muttered.
“Perhaps we can help you look for the demon,” Viriya said.
Tam took a moment to consider, making a show of rubbing his chin. Several of the other guards had come closer. “I’d be glad for the help of course. But also, you realize this is my mission, yes? I can’t have you trespass.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be working for you in this case, not with you. Does that satisfy?”
“That works.” He pointed to the men and women behind him. “I have most of them spread out all over the area, but we haven’t found any trace of the boy yet. I’m hoping he’s either hiding, not far from here if he’s escaped, or still coming here.”
“Ah, thus the hidden trap you sprung around us. Ingenious.”
Tam smiled smugly. “I try.”
Viriya nodded at Riven. “Riven can keep you company while I go look elsewhere. Oh, and you might be interested to know, Rosiene is here too.”
“Oh really! I must have just missed her. I’d heard she was assigned to this mission, and was hoping to meet her.”
Riven held back his grimace at Tam’s eagerness. Good thing Rose had gone too far to have noticed.
“Well, I’ll be off.”
“But the Spectre? Do you mind if I take custody of her?”
“No, not at all. She’s all yours.”
Arrilme, who had been looking between them with a fearful look plastered on her face, now screamed outright. “You can’t! You said you’d help me.!”
Viriya did a good imitation of scoffing. “Really, help a Spectre? You must be out of your mind. Or maybe that’s just part of being a Spectre.”
Arrilme only stared, mouth hanging open. She made no protests when two guards encircled her and took her by the arms. Riven carefully kept his eyes away from the Spectre, sure that if he looked even once, his expression would give the whole charade away.
Viriya nodded at Tam, then met Riven’s eyes for a moment, giving him two long blinks to signal something he didn’t understand. He tried not to baulk. There was too much in her dark green depths for him to take in such a short time, a message too long for him to read beyond skimming. But he understood the gist of it. Viriya would find the boy and get him to safety.
The rest was up to him.