It was the hummingbird people all over again, the ones I’d seen on my first encounter with the Incursion, only there was a key difference: they were made of stone.

Down to the last, each and every one was made of stone.

“What kind of statues are these?” Yuta asked.

More statues emerged from the fog as we approached. First one, then three, then a dozen, then a hundred. Then thousands—and still, more.

No sculptor could have made these… I thought, as my jaw went slack.

The detail was heinous. The depth of the renderings really only began to hit me when we approached the cluster nearest to us. Every feather was perfectly articulated. You could see where the individual strands had been stirred by movement and wind. They were beautiful and adorable, clothed in breeches, some with robes, others in vests—both, high-necked, some even topped with frilly neck ruffs—with gaps at the back for their short wings. Their shoes were like slippers, shaped to fit around their bird-toed feet, with holes for claws.

And their faces…

“I… I don’t think these are statues,” Brand said, whispering in shock. “I think… whatever beings these were, they were turned to stone.”

“What could do such a thing…?” Yuta said, aghast.

I saw what could only be a parent with their child. The adult was perhaps three feet tall, the child half that. They held each other, hand in hand, running with their wings spread at their backs, ready to take flight. Their beaks were slightly ajar, as if frozen in a scream.

I wondered what they might have sounded like.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I muttered.

Compassion knows no bounds. It can strike us when we least expect it, but when it hits, there is no doubt as to what has transpired. We see another’s suffering, and ache for them, wishing it could have been different.

I ached for these beings. I did not need to know them to see their pain and feel it as my own.

We stood in a garden of terror. Every statue was wide-eyed with panic. Some knelt down, looking up at the sky. Others lay face down on the moss-like grass, their bodies trapped in the middle of motion, fleeing from a horror they’d never escape. Others looked over their shoulder, staring their death in the face. Some weren’t even whole; they lay broken, here a shard of beak, there a piece of wing, or a broken heart.

I saw the hummingbirds holding hands. I saw lovers embrace one another with their wings. I saw figures prostrated on the ground, their beaks tucked between their legs and their wings covering their heads.

They hadn’t wanted to die.

I saw parents with their arms wrapped around their children, holding them close to their chests, desperate to protect them. But the looks of horror on their faces told the truth: they had no chance.

They were powerless.

It was terrifying seeing the sacred bird in this way, in a human-like form, corrupted into lifeless stone. It was yet another sobering reminder of just how much we didn’t know.

My mind ran wild.

Was this merely another world, or was it something more? Was it our Angel’s creation, or another’s? What connection was there between this world and mine? Why had these hummingbird-people been turned to stone? Was it the work of Hell? Was it an act of God—a divine punishment? Or was it something else? Something eldritch and nameless; unknown and unknowable.

“What happened here?” Yuta said, in a whisper, speaking the question that was loudest in my own mind.

“Q-Quiet,” I said, barely audible. My voice was stuck in my throat.

It didn’t feel safe to talk. I felt like even the slightest whisper would shatter this accursèd place, and call up the evil that had brought it its doom. Every sound seemed intensified.

And then I realized. “There’s no sound here,” I said.

And it was true. My words hardly carried at all. The fog seemed to leach them right out of the air. The sound barely carried at all.

Unlike my first encounter with the hummingbird-people, there wasn’t a trace of the fungus, nor of the Scary-Shinies, or the frigid ammonia wilds that had hissed and burst.

The Geoffrey-feeling in my chest stirred, making me close my eyes and flinch. I groaned softly.

“Genneth?” Brand asked.

I stuck out my arm and shook my head. “No, it’s just Geof—”

But then I stopped and opened my eyes.

“No. It’s… it’s more than that. I…”

My breath joined my voice, stuck in my throat.

I tingled with dread.

“Something’s here,” I muttered, jaw slack, looking up at the buildings. “Something’s watching us. Something ancient and unknown.” I looked Brand in the face. “I think the fog is more than just… fog.”

“What?” Yuta asked.

I shook my head. “I didn’t know, it… it just is. I can feel it.”

“Genneth,” Brand whispered, “you feel it, too?”

“Feel what?” Yuta asked.

“The fog…” Brand said.

“You too, robot?” Yuta said.

He nodded.

I stepped forward. My footsteps were hardly audible, yet they sounded unbearably loud to my ears.

“The fog… it’s a symbol,” I said. It was like someone else was standing just out of reach, putting the words in my mouth. “Sorrow. Death. It held meaning, though to whom or what, I don’t know. The emotions are turbid.”

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I looked over the statues.

Was it yours? I wondered.

Brand nodded solemnly. “Wrath,” he said. “Vengeance. Glory. Despair.”

“Terror,” I added.

“What does it mean?” Yuta asked.

I shook my head. “I wish I knew.”

Yuta stared at me for a while, while Brand surveyed our surroundings.

The robot sorcerer glanced back at me. “There has to be something here.” He walked forward, and Yuta and I followed him. The base of one of the buildings came into view. “Look,” Brand said, pointing with his staff, “there are… entrances.”

Open archways punched through the ground floor of the building, chained together in a ring that wrapped all the way around the structure.

“Is it wise to go inside?” Yuta asked.

I looked up at the sky. The fog swallowed… everything.

“I sure as hell don’t want to be out in the open,” Brand said.

I couldn’t fault him for that.

Brand trudged off without another word, his green sorcerer’s cape billowing behind him. He waved us to come follow him. “Let’s go,” he said.

I had to close my gaping mouth as we stepped inside. I made the Bond-sign.

The interior was almost entirely hollow. Massive columns rose from the ground at the vertices of an imaginary hexagon, along with an even larger column that stood at the center. The number of egg-shaped buildings we’d seen on the outside paled in comparison to the ones encrusting the inner surfaces of the building’s walls. The walls were strung up with walkways and platforms. Whole parks and plazas were held aloft in the network, rich with flowers and fountains, and long stretches of reflecting pools.

It was a city at the edge of the sky.

A trio of glass domes studded the ceiling, letting in wan, fog-sapped daylight. The walls weren’t solid sheets, but bore large openings at regular intervals that let in cool, mist-burdened air. I imagined they’d served as entrances and exits. I could only guess at the significance of the ornamental patterns that had been painted around the opening.

The ground floor—where we stood—was a single, expansive park, with gardens even lusher than the ones above. A lattice of paved paths crisscrossed through the park, passing geometric reflecting pools with silent fountains ceaselessly burbling. Softly glowing flowers bloomed among alien water lilies. The giant red flowers were almost everywhere, laid out in a massive grid.

“Did they all… fall…?” Yuta asked, near-speechless.

The beauties of this place were marred by horror. We stood at the site of a massacre. It was a graveyard without graves, but there was no difficulty in reading their fates.

The statues were everywhere. But mostly, they were in pieces. The ground was littered by the debris of shattered bodies of petrified hummingbird-beings. I could almost see the trajectories their bodies had taken as they’d fallen, and then been pulverized against the uncaring ground.

“It had to have happened while they were flying,” I said.

“And suddenly,” Brand added. “It had to have happened suddenly. They were caught off-guard.”

Many of the hummingbirds were still intact, both up on the walkways and on the ground floor. I saw them standing in the doorways of their homes high up on the wall. I saw statues toppled into silent pools, I saw terrified beaks gaping up at the sky, arms outstretched, begging for a mercy that would never come.

“This…” I muttered, shaking my head. “This is unholy.”

Shuddering, I turned around and walked out, coming to a stop underneath one of the entry arches.

I sat down cross-legged, curling my tail around to the side. I slumped forward, letting my head hang.

I heard Yuta and Brand’s approaching footsteps. I didn’t bother to look up as I started to speak.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for once… I’m actually happy that Andalon isn’t here right now.” I took a deep breath. My hand reached for my neck, to fidget with my lucky bow-tie, only to grasp at thin air because I’d forgotten it wasn’t there.

“Angel,” I said, “if she’d been here… if she’d seen this…?” I covered my mouth with my hand. “She’d be terrified.”

“It’s eerie,” Brand said, “I’m not gonna lie.”

Letting out a pained sigh, I looked up at Brand Nowston’s screen-face. “Does your science have an explanation for this, Dr. Nowston?” I stuck out my arms, gesturing at our surroundings.

“Is it because of the hummingbirds?” Yuta asked. His sandals clapped softly on the smooth stone pavement. “I assume Lassedicy still holds the bird sacred by your faith?”

I nodded. “Yes to both.”

“At my estate,” he said, “I kept sweetened water out for them to drink. They’d come in droves in springtime.”

Meanwhile, I stared at the statues for as long as I could bear.

“I came on this adventure because I thought it would help me understand what was happening. But now, I feel more lost than ever before. We really don’t know anything at all, do we? It’s just a matter of time before some new horror emerges from the darkness and strikes us, and we’ll be powerless to stop it, just like these creatures were.”

Levitating his staff beside him, Brand crossed his fingers, hand in hand. “Andalon told you there’s more than one Angel, right?” Brand asked.

Leaning my head back against the arch, I closed my eyes and groaned. “Yep. There’s a whole bunch of Angels. How many? I don’t know. What do they do? I don’t know. What does it all mean? I don’t know.” I spoke in a drained monotone. I chuckled darkly. “I guess I’m just like Andalon now,” I said, muttering, “I dunno, Mr. Genneth; I dunno,” in a desultory sing-sion.

“What if this place—this Incursion… what if it’s the creation of one of the other Angels?” Brand asked.

“I was thinking of the same thing,” I said, “but the pieces don’t quite fit.” I looked up at Brand. “It doesn’t explain why Andalon was so afraid of this place. When I found her, she’d been gravely injured, and she later confirmed that someone or something had attacked her, and, not just that, but that it was an ongoing problem. Someone was chasing her.”

“Did she identify her pursuer?” Yuta asked.

I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no. You gotta understand, she’s not very specific.” I shook my head again. “Not specific at all. And yet…” I looked out onto the city. “She told me the Incursion was caused by her pursuers. If she’s working as an agent of the Angel—our Angel, or maybe another’s—or, fudge, if she is one of the other Angels—why would she be afraid of the other Angels’ creations?”

I made a mental note to ask Andalon if she, herself, was one of the “Shiny Guys”, as she called the Angels.

Crossing his arms, Yuta leaned back against the other side of the entrance arch. “When gods are many,” he said, “quarrels are inevitable. Perhaps the Angels are at war with one another.” He stared at the shattered statues scattered in the gardens.

I gasped.

Realization hit me like a lightning bolt. All of my scales seemed to stand on end. I shot up to my feet, sucking in air. Tingling sensations ran down my arms and back.

“What is it?” Brand asked.

“Southmarch,” I said. “The Battle of Southmarch.”

“What about it?”

“It’s like a told you earlier,” I said, “the Lass didn’t die at Southmarch, not in the traditional sense. According to legend, a portal opened in the sky—a window in the air—through which Enille’s soul was Translated directly to Paradise. Giant hummingbirds could be seen within the portal to Paradise, and what remained of the Lass’ physical body was then transfigured into the same—a memento of Paradise, if you will.”

“You seriously believe that’s what happened?” Yuta said.

“At this point, I don’t know what I believe anymore,” I replied. “But… giant hummingbirds? Think about it. If you were an ancient Trenton at the battle and saw hummingbird people appear, what would you call them?”

Brand’s LED eyebrows flattened on his display-screen face. “Fair enough.”

“Think about it,” I said, “maybe the Lass ended up with them. If she’s still there, she might be able to help us!”

My words echoed through the building’s interior.

“Genneth, that was two-thousand years ago,” Brand replied.

“Maybe time flows differently for hummingbird people.”

“At this point,” he said, “anything is possible.”

I nodded. “These creatures… the likeness is just too uncanny. They have to be the ‘giant hummingbirds’ from scripture.”

“Does that mean they’re on our side?” Brand asked.

“I can’t be sure, but… I’d like to think so.”

“Then,” Yuta said, “whatever force turned these creatures to stone—”

I nodded. “—They’d be our enemy. They’d be what Andalon fears.”

Brand’s LED eyebrows furrowed. “But… wait a minute.” His levitating staff gyrated about, stopping when it pointed at me.

“You said the giant hummingbirds—that is, the hummingbird people—were seen inside the portal to Paradise?”

My jaw dropped as my blood ran cold. The skin at the back of my head twitched. “But then, that means…” I stared at our surroundings.

“We’re in Paradise,” Brand said. He pointed at the ground. “This is it.”

“This is no Paradise I would want to be in,” Yuta added.

“I… I think there’s a war going on in Paradise,” I said. “The Angels are fighting. And Andalon is one of them.”

I swallowed hard.

“A war in Paradise, and we are its casualties,” Yuta said. He turned his head toward the hummingbird people. “As were they.”

Then the earth shook, and my heart leapt.