Astra found herself staring as Crow trailed off, watching every millimetre of his face for any sign of deceit or secrecy. She hated herself for it, or at least part of her did, and yet she couldn’t help but scrutinise the boy’s every expression.

He’d said he’d lied to her, that he’d been hiding what really happened that day. Astra had always been able to tell when her brother was lying, and it was hard to believe that she could have missed a lie as big as that.

But then, he’d never told her a lie so big before. Perhaps the sheer size of it had sharpened his deceptive abilities.

He opened his mouth once more, and all thoughts left her but the sheer, unbridled need to hear the rest. He’d never mentioned a dark-skinned man before, not even once. She wondered why he’d brought him up now.

Crow’s lips parted and closed silently for several moments, clearly showing his struggle to speak the truth. Finally, however, he managed a few words.

“I’m sorry,” the boy said, voice heavy and strained. “But I don’t think I can… Can we save the rest for later?”

Her first instinct was to urge him on. She was so close, finally, to finding out the cause for his insane obsession with the Eclipse’s Nectar. And if she knew the root, she may well have been able to work out how to remove it.

And yet the soft fragility evident in her brother’s eyes forced the fight from Astra’s body. Cursing under her breath, she nodded.

The relief that blossomed across his face was of little consolation.

***

He was going to kill him.

Faction Leaders be damned, the indolent, lethargic tyrants had caused enough problems with their reckless indulgences. They might well have his head, but he didn’t care.

He was going to kill Unity Eden.

The Jaxif Faction was growing by the day, more and more mystics were flocking to it- even as the Unixian Alliance pitifully tried to hide it. With the disarray Bermuda was in, he could surely flee. With the disarray Eden’s death would bring, he could surely make it far.

He wasn’t sure whether that would let him reach Dewlz before being tracked down, but he had no doubt in his mind that death was preferable to spending even a single more moment as the boy’s guardian.

Hours of negotiating, explaining and lying through his teeth. For what? To protect him? That wretched, vicious little monster? How many years had he spent warding off the consequences of that bastard’s actions?

No more.

***

Gem wasn’t sure what to say. Crow had always seemed like a happy person to her, almost carefree. She’d never considered that he was living with an experience like the Serasis massacre.

Looking at his face as he faltered and stopped the story, however, left little room for doubt. She’d forgotten the exact death toll of the incident, but something told her that one could have counted each life lost on the lines of the boy’s face.

They all sat still and quiet. Gem wanted to change the subject, just to talk about something else, and yet nothing came to mind. Even if it had, she doubted she’d have been able to speak in order to bring it up.

Glancing around, she saw expressions on Xeno and Eden which much resembled the one she imagined was plastered across her own face. Astra’s was hidden to her, yet it wasn’t hard to imagine a similarly sour grimace even looking at the back of her head.

What felt like minutes later, Eden spoke.

“Well,” he began, false cheer practically radiating from him, “does anyone have a funnier story? That one barely got a smile out of me.”

She stared at him, scarcely able to believe even he could have been so insensitive. Before she could give the artificial a well-deserved piece of her mind, however, she was cut off by a light chuckle.

Her eyes flickered to Crow, who seemed to be grinning sadly. The expression of one in the process of being dragged from the depths of misery by humour.

“I can’t think of any,” the blonde said. Though his smile was genuine, the words seemed forced. Gem suddenly found herself urged to make him laugh just a little more.

Her silver tongue fell dead in her mouth, the joke evaporating at the back of her throat, as she felt the presence nearing them.

There was something ancient to it, yet unshakably alive. More akin to a centuries-old oak in some deep forest than a person. And yet that didn’t quite describe it either, for a tree couldn’t observe people. Couldn’t possess intent.

Gem felt nothing but intent from the atmospheric magic, and as she saw trembles overcome her teammates, she knew that they had picked up on it as well. At any other time she may have felt a twinge of pride to have detected it so quickly.

Any emotion other than the primal fear clutching her heart was too minor to be noticed, now. All sensations but terror were driven from her by adrenaline, all thoughts but survival forced to the back of her mind as irrelevancies.

Her body hadn’t caused her quite so much grief for the last twelve hours. Perhaps that was why she so easily leapt from the bed, stifling the pangs of sharp pain running down her wounded sides as the urge to stand and flee far exceeded the trained state of lethargy her recovery had lulled her into.

Though she half expected to hear Xeno call for her to get back into bed, to chastise her for risking her own wellbeing, Gem couldn’t bring herself to look at the girl. Her eyes were pulled to the door, welded in place so completely that to glance at anything else, even for a second, seemed impossible.

Xeno may have been in much the same state, as her protest never came.

Without realising, Gem enveloped herself with magic. It was like water after days of thirst. More than that, it brought a light to the world that she’d not even noticed herself missing. The strength and power coursing through each cell of her body, pumping strength through her veins as much as blood, almost made her laugh.

How had she gone entire days without it? Such a thing seemed impossible now, even though Gem knew exactly why. She’d felt her magic run out, abandoning her when it was needed most. The thought of calling on it again had been sickening.

She wasn’t sick now, though. And without the reinforcement magic gave her backbone, she may well have smashed through the wall behind her just to flee. Certainly, she’d not have been able to stand her ground when the door to their room was reduced to a cloud of antique splinters.

Instinctively, Gem raised a forearm to shield herself from the spray of makeshift darts. Wood broke before her skin did, yet the sheer velocity of the projectiles had her wincing at the irritant. By the time she’d thought to override her immediate reaction, to stop obstructing her view by lowering her limb, the presence had already made its move.

Unity was in the air, his body aglow with the otherworldly glimmer of magic, visible as a searing light to Gem’s third eye even without her realising she’d opened it.

The colouration of the artificial’s power was nothing, however. Smothered next to his attacker. Like a candle next to a brazier.

The room, illuminated slightly more by the opening of the hallway door, had light enough that Gem could make out the attacker’s face.

Though she was a half dozen paces from him, his dark brown eyes were widened so much that she imagined they’d have been discernible from a mile. His hair was orange, vibrant and gaudy, almost painful to look at with its obnoxious, failed attempt at social nonchalance.

The man’s other features, a flat face, neat and expensive clothes and curled lips, ended all debate inside her as to who he was.

Unison held Unity by the throat with a single hand, lifting him just as he had when Gem had first seen the pair interact. Unity had pointed out they’d had company back then, making the Immortal drop him as he glimpsed Gem and Karma through the red mist of his anger.

He didn’t seem to care that others were watching, now. He didn’t seem to care about anything, save for staring into Unity’s eyes while he throttled the boy.

The sheer savagery of it was such that it kept Gem rooted in place for several seconds, stunning her muscles and numbing her mind as she watched the brutal sight unfold. A moment later, that switch in her head flicked, changing her mental rails and casting aside all curiosity, confusion and disturbance.

Leaving room for only action.

Just looking at Unison, in all his power and wrath, made Gem’s stomach churn with fear and disgust. It was as if the destructive, uncaring fury of a hurricane had been constrained to a single human body. Producing something unspeakably horrifying.

Gem hardly even noticed herself building anti-magic between two hands, condensing it into a sphere and hurling the projectile at the furious man.

Unison didn’t visibly move as the blast, invisible to all but Gem herself, broke against his left ribs. The energies within spilled out across his body, seeping into it and counteracting the power of his magic.

And yet Gem didn’t notice his magic’s intensity drop by even a millimetre, nor did his grip on Unity seem to slacken by an ounce. She realised why with dawning horror.

Her antimagic reduced the target’s potency, temporarily, by a set amount. It was a subtractor, not a divider.

Used against someone with far more potency than her, such as an Immortal, detracting a set amount would cause a proportionally far smaller difference. It was like trying to empty a lake by the bucketful.

The man didn’t even spare a glance in her direction at the attempt, focusing entirely on Unity. Her attack, thrown with every scrap of power she could collect, had been unworthy of even his attention.

Gem felt a sudden, hot rush of anger wash over her. It seemed to flood her body from nowhere, filling it as completely as her magic and providing just as much animation. Placing her hands together once more, she gathered more power. Magic, this time.

The room filled with light in the radiance of her ever-growing energy blast, a pale and almost ghostly glare illuminating every inch of every surface. It lasted just a moment, less time even than a flash of lightning, and yet it gave her a perfect view of her surroundings.

She released it a moment later.

Unison twisted out of the way, dropping Unity and leaning back as the streak of cyan power crossed the space previously occupied by him. Its flight lasted only a fraction of a second before it struck the far wall, reducing paper, brick and mortar to piled rubble, floating debris and pooling molten clay.

Gem didn’t even have the chance to derive any satisfaction from the man’s dodge before he closed in on her.

The first time she’d seen his magic-augmented speed, it had been through her own un-magical eyes. Her perception was enhanced as she stared now, slowing time to a meagre fraction of its usual speed and rendering all but the swiftest motion sluggish and easily read.

Unison moved like a viper, nonetheless. All her magic was barely enough to let her act before he crossed the space separating them, and yet the hasty shield she projected in front of her shattered as he slammed into it, hardly seeming to half his momentum as he reached out and seized her head with one hand.

***

Crow’s Eye of Chronos rendered the flight of Gem’s attack and the dropping of Unity’s body impossibly slow, and yet even so, even with his enhanced reactions and time itself dilated before him, he still struggled to react to the mysterious man as he charged towards Gem.

He’d reached her by the time Unity had fallen so much as a hand closer to the floor, and even as Crow forced every muscle in his legs to move, it was as though he were trying to run through water compared to the orange-haired attacker.

Gem acted first, her right hand creeping up and splaying as she levelled it at the man’s face with speed that surprised Crow even with his abilities activated. The stream of light which exited her palm, broke against her attacker and split out in several different directions across the room nearly made him jump out of his skin with surprise.

When it faded, leaving an acrid smell of burnt wood and plaster hanging in the steam-filled air, Crow saw that it hadn’t so much as made the target loosen his grip. Just as he came to within a few paces of the pair, arms raised in preparation to strike the man, the enemy spun.

The motion was so sudden and swift that Crow was entirely unable to react, only even beginning to move by the time it was completed. Gem whipped around, still held in the man’s grasp, and slammed into his torso, driving the air from him and lifting his feet from the ground as both of them tumbled backwards head over heels.

***

Astra grit her teeth as she saw Crow go hurtling across the room, clipping Xeno and sending the fae to the ground before slamming into the sofa. He ground it to no more than torn fabric, scattered feathers and splintered wood as he continued flying.

The Gemini halted sooner, her momentum angled into the stone floor and sending her bouncing from it in a hail of chipped marble even as the carpet was torn away by the mere friction of her impact.

Both came to a stop at roughly the same time, Crow having smashed partially through the far wall, the Gemini lying some twelve feet short.

The girl’s rolling halt was what spurred Astra into action, her arms flickering to the space in front of her as she began focusing on tearing a gate into the fabric of reality.

She didn’t get the chance.

***

“STOP!” Gem cried, her voice a coarse and unsteady thing. At any other time its fragility would have shamed her. The heat of battle, however, left no room for such petty concerns.

She rolled onto her stomach, forcing her eyes up as she stared around the room. Unison seemed to have seized Unity once more, strangling him just as he had earlier, staring into his eyes with a look of open delight.

The artificial’s hands were pressed to the Immortal’s face, crimson forks of lightning cracking and breaking against his skin. The torrentous energies unleashed from Eden’s fingertips would likely have peeled a lesser mystic’s head down to the skull, rendering all flesh covering a pink mist in moments.

Unison was not a lesser mystic, and he barely winced at the slight sizzling of his reddening skin.

Finding her voice, Gem called out again.

“STOP RIGHT THERE IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE, UNISON!”

She wished she’d known the man's last name, it would surely have added to what little command there was behind her words. Nonetheless, it seemed that what she had was sufficient. Unison paused, turning to glance at her, eyes focusing as though for the first time even as his grip remained steadfast.

Judging by the rate at which Unity’s face was turning crimson, Gem realised she had little time to waste. Her mouth moved so quickly it felt like she’d swallow her own tongue as she spoke.

“What in the Eclipse’s name do you think you’re doing?” She demanded of the Immortal, climbing to her feet as she locked eyes with him. Her ribs screamed in protest at the motion, but Gem simply pushed the sensation down and concentrated on what she could control.

Unison’s head tilted slightly, and Gem continued.

“Did you seriously think we’d just let you kill one of our teammates? That you wouldn’t need to face any resistance at all?”

Eden’s hands fell limply to his side, the magic fading from them as his potency came to a rest. His consciousness was fading, and without will and thought, there was nothing to direct his magic.

Raising her voice to a new volume, she gestured to the boy.

“DROP HIM NOW!”

Unison did not obey, however neither did he entirely ignore her. After a quick glance at the limp, nigh-lifeless artificial, he relaxed his grip. Gem felt a sigh of relief at that.

Unity was by far the most physically frail of them whilst using magic, yet even he would surely have required sufficient pressure to strangle that it wouldn’t have taken long to snap his neck if applied in the absence of magical protection.

The boy gasped for air, though Gem doubted it was anything more than an automatic reaction made by his unconscious body. If nothing else, it served to reassure her that he was alive, and Unison’s pause and attention meant that she had time.

She just needed to use it.

Her mind raced with a thousand possible approaches, most of which ended in failure and, possibly, death. She couldn’t bargain, the look in his eyes told her the Immortal was far beyond reason. His rage meant that pleading would surely be pointless, too.

If she made a long enough distraction, could Unity wake up? Gem doubted it. Even if he did, he’d be able to do no more with the temporary advantage. She could see the faint outlines of the artificial’s hands across the Immortal’s face, burned into the skin.

They looked no more severe than what could be expected from a moment or two spent touching a candle flame. If Unity’s ability, born from such complexity and limitations to bolster its offensive power, could do no more than that, she doubted anything would come of even her attacking the man with everything she had.

At that, her thoughts turned to Astra. To what the girl had said. Gem wasn’t just powerful, she was privileged in ways she’d never considered. And her time in Bermuda had made her keenly aware of just how much she’d benefitted from one fortunate circumstance of birth in particular.

“If you hurt a single one of my teammates, my father will destroy you.”

She felt ridiculous just saying it. Gilasev wasn’t the sort to hurt people in accordance with her demands, he certainly wouldn’t destroy them. Nonetheless, he’d always kept her safe, and he had a tendency not to associate with people of Unison’s temperament. With any luck, that meant that Unison would be entirely ignorant to how empty her threat was.

Evidently, he was.

The Immortal’s eyes narrowed, some semblance of rationality returning to the entropic, hate-filled pits. His answer was almost instantaneous, as strong an indicator as Gem could imagine for the sheer difference in speed between them.

“Do you take me for an idiot, girl?”

His voice was harsh and edged, fishing up memories of their last encounter from deep within Gem’s mind. She suppressed a tremble at the sheer ferocity of it.

“No, that’s why I assume you’re not eager to anger someone who makes your petty magic look like a child’s tantrum.”

It went against her every instinct to insult the man, no matter how slightly. That was why Gem had to do it. As Karma would say, people were quick to assume they’d missed something if they saw their enemy show no fear.

Almost miraculously, the Immortal hesitated. His sneering grin reemerged after only a brief pause, however.

“You’re bluffing,” he spat. “Gilasev Menza didn’t even come running when you’d been tortured in front of the whole world, you expect me to believe he’d go around killing Immortals as you demand?”

“Yes,” Gem said simply. She left a lengthy pause before continuing, using it to try and think of a justification as for why. Fortunately, she was able to spin one before speaking again.

“He left me alone in Bermuda, but you’d have to be a fool to believe I was in any real danger. The moment he’s back I imagine there’ll be some rather violent, unexplained deaths in Nocturnal. And if you weaken my position in front of the whole world, give the Solifates reason to doubt my holiness, make me seem any less the prodigy my life relies on me being, I imagine he’ll take exception to that, too.”

She inhaled sharply as she finished speaking, having expelled almost all the air from her lungs as a stream of words. If one were to think about it, Gem’s reasoning made little sense. Even if Gilasev did respond to Simona’s actions with bloodshed, that was a far cry from doing the same in the face of political strife.

On the other hand, this was a man about to torture, possibly kill, the charge he’d been left by the Factions. An Immortal driven to breaking point, with a lifetime of stability and cold patience collapsing into hot, maddenned rage.

He’d be second-guessing himself, and he’d be terrified. And if Gem wasn’t wrong, he’d be fleeing to somewhere for safety, likely the Jaxif Faction.

In which case, if she could jeopardize his sense of safety, make him think he’d incur a threat that there was simply no hiding from, she may well be able to dissuade him. It was working, she could see. The conflict across his face, the anxiousness, uncertainty.

It seemed her father was an incredible motivator.

Slowly, the Immortal answered her.

“You know, Gemini, you really are quite typical of your family. You may not associate with most of it, but anyone who does could spot you for a Menza a mile off, and I’m not even referring to your appearance.”

He took a step forward, gaze suddenly hardening.

“You have their knack for telling the most ludicrous, outrageous lies and making them seem as convincing as anything by virtue of brute-force charisma, and the fact that nobody in their right mind would tell them.”

Despite herself, Gem took two steps back. She felt a tremor of panic wash through her, horror dawning as she realised her gambit had failed.

“Gilasev Menza is not your attack hound, girl.” Unison snarled. “And anyone who claims to know what that man will do demonstrates nothing more than their complete lack of real understanding as to who he is.”

She didn’t even have time to ponder that, before the Immortal moved.

The man’s attack was swift and direct, sparing no delay to test her defenses or preparedness. When charging someone several times slower and dozens of times weaker, why would it?

Gem felt power thrum at her fingertips, hoisting them up to spatter her enemy with corrosive energy, buy however large a fraction of a second as she could for herself. Before she could unleash her attack, he was upon her.

And before he could fully grab her, the blur Gem hadn’t even noticed shifting in the corner of her eye was at his back.

The spear blade came to rest against Unison’s throat, pressing into the skin so clearly that Gem was sure it would draw blood at any moment. Next to the panting, trembling body of the Immortal, the weapon was held impossibly still. As though seized by the hands of a statue, rather than a man.

The Kin said nothing, nor did it need to. It merely remained in place, faceless visor pointed directly at the eyes of its enemy. From any other creature, that may have struck Gem as a challenge. She knew better than to think such a thing of the Kin, however.

Kin didn’t make challenges, they made silent promises. And something told Gem that Unison wouldn’t survive his next nervous twitch.

“I think that’s quite enough, organiser.” Came a cool, hard voice from the doorway.

Just hearing it filled Gem with a bizarre mix of hope and relief, enough that her instinct to turn and identify the source far outstripped her instinct to keep both eyes on the Immortal.

Karma stood in the doorway, the second Kin standing to attention by her side, hands clutching its weapon. Her amber eyes were focused intently on Unison, and something about them sent frosty fingers seeping into Gem’s heart.

“Miss Alabaster,” the Immortal hissed. “I assure you, you’re acting far too hastily. I was merely-”

With a single gesture from Karma, the second of her armoured bodyguards stalked across the room. Drawing its spear back, the Kin sent the butt slamming into Unison’s side with such speed that Gem, magically augmented though she was, could barely follow the movement.

It folded the Immortal over, bringing a pained wince to his face and lowering his body an entire foot as the knees holding him up grew shaky and unsteady.

“Don’t talk,” Karma said, plainly. “And, obviously, don’t make any sudden movements. If you do, I shall have my bodyguards kill you. If you’re stupid enough to believe that I will face any consequences for this, or hesitate to do so in spite of their absence, you may test your hypothesis. Though I imagine the result will be lost to you, as will your head.”

Unison didn’t speak, nor did he make any sudden movements. Gem took that to mean he understood, as, apparently, did Karma.

“Kin,” the Olympian called out sharply, “please escort my fellow organiser to the lobby, I imagine it will soon be swarmed with the Crux’s guards.”

The faceless bodyguards did as instructed, pausing only to shift their positioning in order to surround the Immortal. Gem noticed they made no gesture for him to deactivate his magic, simply kept their weapons trained on him.

She supposed, for two Kin already at throat-cutting distance, it made little difference whether a low-level Fable was using his magic or not. Unison didn’t turn to glance back at Gem, nor any of her teammates, as he was led out. She didn’t blame him, a parting glare was surely not worth a parting slash.

Karma stepped aside as her bodyguards led Unison by her, staring at the Immortal as though daring him to try and attack. He didn’t, and once he was gone the Olympian closed the door at his back before turning to look around the ruined quarters.

“Are any of you seriously hurt?”

Gem remained silent, allowing her to clearly hear the pained groans from her teammates.