“In numerology, eleven is a sacred number. It represents heaven reflected on itself. One and one. We can find an underlying pattern throughout society that treats this as holy. There are eleven Archons who rule over eleven Great Cities.”

I opened my eyes to see Everett sitting on the grass next to me. He was rolling a cigarillo on his lap and winked when he saw he had my attention. His clever fingers manipulated the tobacco leaf the same way I’d watched a hundred times before. There were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and grey hair had begun to show at his temples. Still, he gave off the energy of a man in his prime, happily rambling about esoteric knowledge to an audience he knew couldn’t care less.

But this time I did care, focusing on every word he said. In fact they were the same words he had uttered earlier in the day, an hour before the Magistrate arrived.

His smile grew larger. “Well look at you, young master. Forgive me if my lesson woke you up from your nap. Honestly, I just enjoy hearing myself speak, and your good parents actually pay me to do it. Don’t tell me, do you actually like numerology? It’s one of my favorites.”

“What?” I stood and looked around. Everything seemed the same as usual. I looked at the back of my shaking hands, expecting them to be cracked and burnt from the flames, but the skin was smooth and tanned. Birds sang sweet melodies to each other. The breeze contained a hint of salt from the nearby Twilight Sea.

“Numerology.” Everett mixed bits of clove into his cigarillo. “It’s one of the hard sciences. It’s intrinsically linked with logic, philosophy, all the underpinnings of the world. Tarotology and the like are all nonsense and don’t let anyone tell you different. Your mother named you after augury, which is trying to tell the future based on how birds fly around. Bless her soul.”

I stared at him. Had everything before simply been a dream? The things I had touched, the smells, the pain---all had seemed so real at the time. Death was one of the sure ways of waking up from a dream. That must have been what happened. It had been a vivid nightmare, perhaps triggered because of Everett mentioning the Archon while I was drifting to sleep.

Everett rolled the cigarillo tight and licked it to seal the paper. Rising to his feet, he tucked the cigarillo behind his ear and coughed. “Let me go light this, supposing you don’t mind.”

Whistling, he strolled down the avenue towards the manor. Everything about this seemed so familiar.

Most likely it was a coincidence. Everett often smoked during our lectures and went off on tangents about numerology and alchemy. We must have gone through the same motions a dozen times before. But there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind I couldn’t explain. I sat against the lemon tree until Everett returned.

“Do you think it’s possible to tell the future?” I said as he crouched next to me.

Everett blew a smoke ring off to the side and scrunched his face in thought. “Most philosophers agree it’s impossible. No prophecy has ever come true unless it so was vague it could apply to a dozen situations. Our ancestors used to practice oracular magic, sure. But our ancestors did a lot of nonsense without any scientific basis. Smarter men than me could talk to you about causality and the arrow of time. You’re a bright kid but even if I knew how to explain it I’m not sure you’d understand.”

Everett was eccentric but I trusted him. He had studied under the renowned philosopher Severius and graduated from the Academia Levana. I believed him if he said there was no proven incident of a person accurately predicting the future. He was far too overeducated to be my tutor and we both knew it. His casual attitude made me think he saw his position as a sort of retirement.

To me he was a mysterious figure. Levana was on the other side of the Civilized Lands, meaning over the course of his life he had journeyed farther than I could imagine before finally ending up here. Even though the Archons protected mankind from the outside world they were not all-powerful. As a child I could never tell which stories to believe but I was certain that outside of Velassa’s walls there were vast swathes of land best avoided. Chaos from the outside world had found a home in those lost and quiet places.

Despite everything I could feel my heart racing in my chest. I was old enough that people expected me to leave my childish fantasies behind. I was the son of cloth merchants, expected to learn the ins and outs of the family business.

I told myself this but my panic continued to grow. I felt like my dream had merged with reality. Everything around me proceeded the same as I had remembered. Perhaps I could have shaken the feeling if it hadn’t been for me waking up to Everett saying the exact same words I remembered from him speaking earlier. I had only half paid attention to him but I was certain he had never waxed poetic about the number eleven before today.

The entire situation made me feel helpless. It reminded me of when I was younger and had been scared of the dark. There was the sense that something dangerous and unknowable watched from the shadows, an eerie pressure on the soul.

Sensing my unease, Everett placed a hand on my shoulder. “Is something wrong? You’re behaving different today. I can’t recall the last time you actually asked me a question.”

I spoke before thinking about what I was saying. “Do you know anything about my father looking into the Archons? Does he ever talk about Archon Nony to you?”

Everett’s hand slipped from my shoulder. He exhaled a stream of smoke. The sight of it sent my heart racing.

“Your father is a brilliant man. I’ve met a lot of smart people so I don’t use that term lightly. But there is absolutely no reason a merchant would do something so unbelievably stupid. He didn’t tell you he was, did he?”

“Maybe..maybe you should go.” I tried to smile but it came out as more of a grimace. “I think my dad made a mistake.”

Everett looked down the avenue, eyes wide. There was nothing but rows of trees. “If you’re joking, I’m not impressed. Maybe I haven’t been the best tutor but I hope you respect me enough not to lie about that sort of thing. Come, let’s go to your father and get to the bottom of this.”

“I really think you should go now.” Some of the panic creeped into my voice.

Everett ran a hand through his hair, a complex expression on his face. I had no idea what he was thinking as he watched me fidget. I thought of the way he had fled when he saw the Magisters, how he hadn’t even attempted to help me.

In a way I resented the way he had abandoned me in that moment of panic, regardless of whether it was in a dream or a prophecy or something even further beyond my understanding. We had known each other for years. As foolish as it was I considered him one of my few friends, a familiar face that had laughed with me and sparked my imagination with stories of the outside world.

“Go,” I said.

Everett gave me a tight-lipped nod and wandered off. Instead of walking down the avenue he headed towards the back of the manor. From there he could climb the gate separating us from our neighbors and find a safer route. The sight of his retreating figure eased some of my panic. He was my friend and I had saved him.

I headed back towards the manor. I walked at first but all the nervous energy building in my body demanded I speed up. I was running by the time I watched the portico and leapt up the stairs two at a time. I wrenched the front door open, much to the shock of one of the maids cleaning the foyer.

“What’s the fuss?”

It was Velia, a pretty young woman I had developed a bit of a crush on. For a moment I was embarrassed for her to see me in such a panic.

“Where’s my father? I need to see him.”

She offered me an uncertain smile. “He’s in his study."

I thanked her before rushing in that direction. As I hurried along I remembered the way the flames had devoured everything. All the beauty of my home was little more than kindling. After an eternity I arrived outside of my father’s study.

What if I was wrong? I sent Everett away and come here based off some nightmare. I knocked before I gave in to my second thoughts.

“Come in.”

I had only seen the inside of my father’s study a handful of times. It never failed to impress me. Countless books lined the walls; once I had asked him if he had read them all and with a smile he claimed to have memorized at least half of them. The rest of the study could be considered an exercise in organized chaos. A vibrant quilt imported from the Turquoise Isles dangled from a bust of some ancient philosopher. The saber he had wielded in my dream was propped against a recliner.

Father sat behind a mahogany desk like a dragon in the center of its hoard. He looked up from one of the several tomes arrayed before him and steepled his fingers under his chin. “What's the matter, Leones?Shouldn’t you be with Everett?”

Father poured himself a measure of brandy from a crystal decanter. Sipping it, he waited for me to gather my thoughts.

I was unsure where to start. I clasped my hands behind my back to stop them from trembling. “I sent him away. I didn’t want the Magisters to get him.”

The glass paused at his lips. “The Magisters? The Magistrate is here?”

“No, not yet,” I said. “I had a dream they come here with soldiers. They said you were looking into the Archon. They burned everything. You aren’t, are you?”

Father finished the brandy and rose to his feet. He was a tall man, standing head and shoulders above most. He had always been gentle towards me but many people found him imposing. The intensity in his cold grey eyes made me realize why.

Even his voice was deeper, a husky growl I had never heard from him. “A dream? This happened in a dream? Tell me the truth. How did you learn about this? Did your mother say something?”

I felt overwhelmed by all of my fear and uncertainty, by the abandonment and disbelief from the people I looked up to. Most damning of all, he had admitted he had been looking into the Archon. All of my life I saw him as someone holy, someone beyond reproach. I believed in him the way I believed the sun would rise in the morning. In the end it turned out he was just a man.

His voice was little more than a whisper. “How could they know? This doesn’t make any sense. Tell me what you saw, Leones.”

It took a moment to find my voice. Slowly, haltingly, I described my dream. How the Magisters came with a retinue of soldiers and brought ruin to everything we knew. He poured himself more brandy as I told him how our home had burned around me. In a small voice I explained how the world had warped around me and I woke up to Everett’s voice.

All the blood drained from my father’s face. “You used magic? Has this ever happened before?”

Out of all the responses I had braced myself for I had never imagined he would say such a thing. Seeing my confusion, father choked out a laugh. He walked across the room and touched the spine of an ancient leather-bound book. Eyes closed, he muttered to himself under his breath. I had seen him do this before as a parlor trick. Years ago he challenged me to pick a page from a book in his library. After I told him he laid his hand on the book and after a moment was able to recite the entire passage from memory.

He opened his eyes and glanced at me. “It doesn’t make sense. There’s no true divination magic. It’s impossible to tell the future. I need you to focus for me, son. Remember exactly how you felt in that moment. Try to recreate that exact sensation.”

Despite everything he was my still father. Even at my worst he had never raised his voice at me. He had never disciplined me with the switch. Especially when I was younger I had been prone to mischief; every time I went too far he would sit me down and explain what I had done wrong. Sometimes when my mother wasn’t around he would even put on a secretive smile and tell me how I could have done it better. He had given me everything. If he wanted me to try, I would try.

I remembered the way the flames had closed in around me. At first my mind shied away from the memory of my skin blistering and beginning to slough away. I gritted my teeth and focused. I felt an echo of that agony, of the primal terror I felt as black smoke roiled around me. How in the end the world had fractured around me.

And just like that a wisp of that bizarre power drifted past my consciousness. I noticed it and it noticed me. I abandoned the memory of death and reached out. That force was like lightning on a summer day. It was an orchid in the desert and a shadow in the valley of heaven. It was the anger hiding deep within the prayers of a saint. It was all of that and more.

A bright explosion of pain forced me back to reality. It felt as if someone was twisting a knife in the front of my skull. Tiny stars drifted through my vision; the world around me was blurred, unfocused. I sat on the floor and buried my face in my hands, waiting for the pain to subside.

I heard my father’s voice. “What’s wrong, Leones? Why aren’t you with Everett?”