35

Marith stood next to the burning pyre, mindlessly fidgeting with the clockwork in her pocket. The wood crackled and burned fiercely, while the flames danced high against the grey and white backdrop the forest provided.

The Runners had built a woodpile for Iris and had placed her limp remains on it. Sophie, Meriyem and Theresa had surrounded her with flowers from the local florist. Everybody had pitched in.

Together with dr. Sybling, Keymaker, Lucille, Pavan and Sophie the Chain stood in a circle around the pyre, with frozen faces and solemn voices.

Lucille read a bible verse that Marith barely listened to. Something about eternal perspective, Jesus and unity.

Dr. Sybling stood at the head of the funeral pyre, in between Lucille and Pavan. Sophie was clenching a pack of paper tissues on Pavan’s left.

The days after Iris’s death dr. Sybling had been inconsolable. Sophie had attempted to scrub the blood off the walls. The linoleum floor had been easy to mop. It was made to get dirty and then to be cleaned, but the walls were another story entirely. Eventually the children had made a large drawing of Iris and they had more or less hung it over the copper stains. It had been a group effort.

Now dr. Sybling mostly just stood there, like an emotionless statue, eerily composed. Was there a lust for revenge behind her eyes, incurable sadness or just the plain emptiness that they all knew too well? Were the twin sisters even susceptible to the Empty? Marith briefly wondered if she had prescribed herself something or other to numb the pain, then pushed that thought away. It felt almost sacrilegious to think such thoughts about Oracle’s twin.

Sophie was sobbing without shame or trepidation. “It’s just so sad,” she kept repeating, “so unbelievably sad.” She wasn’t aware the entire group could hear her whispers and sniffles loud and clear over Lucille’s fragile voice and the crackling of the timber.

Will stood across from Marith at the pyre, in between Lisa and his father. Keymaker’s face looked like a melted candle. Lisa looked like her delicate self, pale and vulnerable.

After the group returned from the cliff Lisa had joined them. From her dorm room she had seen her boyfriend plummet into the Clock in the Sky for his one and only Rebirth. She had arrived before he had landed back in Sweet Lake. Marith was secretly happy Nate had been ordered to stay where he was.

She noticed how William was taking everything in with new eyes, new lungs – that wouldn’t be affected by the smoke so much – and enhanced senses. He looked shocked and elated at the same time.

Marith vaguely remembered how the day after her own Rebirth had been. She had only had a brief chance to marvel about her new abilities, before she had learned that the Kid had awakened and that his first victim had been her little sister.

William looked back at her and their eyes met briefly. It was a hollow exchange. William didn’t appear to be particularly sad and Marith wasn’t it the mood to allow herself to feel anything. She had been relatively passive throughout the train accident, the robbery on Jonathan’s store and during her wrestling match with Samuel on the ice. Why let it all in now?

Marith quickly glanced away to stare emotionless at the white world around them. The blanket of snow in the area had grown several inches. She wondered how the days had gone by so fast. Then she remembered she had spent them in bed.

Several days of near-comatose sleep had followed after she had saved Vanessa and had provided Samuel with a heartbeat. She needed desperately to recover from the interdimensional trips she had made that day.

Marith had just wanted to sleep, because in her dreams anything was possible, even forgetting about Samuel’s retaliation or her lingering fight with Nate.

In the last few days she had felt herself eroding and growing at the same time. She was starting to come to terms with the fact that she would always carry a dark and empty place within her, but she had also started to realize that if she would bundle and steer her energy towards something bigger than herself she was capable of greatness.

She had begun to comprehend her talent wasn’t completely random. There was a reason, an orchestrated wholeness to the Universe, which made her outpouring of energy purposeful. She began to understand why each Mage had a specific set of skills and faint ideas about how to insert them into their battle started to fill her mind.

Her successes were the result of exercising her talent all day every day by herself, alone and, secretly, with others around. Those epiphanies unfortunately hadn’t made her less tired.

The group startled in unison when a flock of snowflakes flurried by them. The white dust came from the trees that separated the small clearing from the parking lot of the clinic. A sharp wind followed. This lightened up the fire.

As the flames grew and devoured Iris’s body Pavan reached for Cecile’s wrist. Marith knew he was going to pull buried memories from her mind. On the other side he reached for Sophie’s wrist. She barely noticed him doing so.

Lucille locked into dr. Sybling’s right wrist. She let everything happen. The attendees of the funeral formed a chain.

Pavan showed the day Iris was gifted to dr. Sybling through the eyes of Iris. Marith realized there was no other way of showing how they first met, because dr. Sybling had been blind up until meeting her guide dog.

Cecile was still young, probably in her early teens. Her sister was accompanying her. They wore matching white dresses, shoes and jewels.

Cecile and Sybil entered a living room in what looked like a lodge. The floors were covered in rugs, the walls were adorned by mounted game. A fire roared in a large, stone fireplace, but most of the light came from various oil lamps.

An older couple sat in rocking chairs by the fireplace, next to a basket of puppies. The Weimaraner dog that could only be the mother of the pups rushed towards the girls and was licking Cecile’s hand.

At the time, neither Cecile nor Sybil had known the language the couple spoke, but Marith recognized it as German.

The girls had been told that the man who had bred the dogs had a way with animals. No doubt in the same fashion Marith had a way with heartbeats and Lucille had a way with birds.

The Chain learned that Iris was given to Cecile by other Pupils, the Elders of their time, after it had become likely that Sybil was the next Oracle. At some point in the near future Sybil would have to leave her visually impaired twin behind to serve destiny and to calm her mind and to ease the pain of their separation Iris was brought into their lives.

The details around the adoption stayed vague, mainly because to this day Cecile didn’t understand the exact workings behind the bond between Iris and herself either. She just knew that it worked for them.

More random memories followed swiftly, but clear as day. Iris running with Ethiopian wolves over green pastures, tumbling over each other between strange looking palm trees. Iris showing dr. Sybling the flower fields at Langebaan in South-Africa. Iris accompanying dr. Sybling onto a stage to accept her medical degree. Iris meeting Pavan and Lucille for the first time. Iris helping dr. Sybling unwrap Christmas presents in front of a decorated tree. Iris sleeping next to the psychiatrist in various beds throughout the decades. And finally, Iris and dr. Sybling making a permanent move to Sweet Lake, a few decades previous to Iris dying.

Dr. Sybling had experienced her whole life in darkness up until she had been given her dog. In Cecile’s life there was only ‘before Iris’ and ‘with Iris’. Now there was an ‘after Iris’ as well.

For reasons only Oracle had been able to foresee the Web had sent Pedro to join the Chain of North-America. Out of all the Mages Oracle could have called upon, she had chosen Pedro.

After the group had quietly unlocked their wrists from their neighbours fingertips and vice versa Pedro moved towards dr. Sybling. Sophie followed him with big eyes. Cecile turned her head towards the sound of his footsteps travelling through the crunching the snow.

“Dr. Sybling,” Pedro whispered, “look at me.”

Everyone knew dr. Sybling wasn’t quite capable of looking at anything, but she obeyed by searching for his face.

Just as Marith had seen him do multiple times before Pedro raised his left hand and arched his wrist until his hand floated horizontally in the air. He then spread his fingers as wide as possible. He attempted to manipulate the Web by channelling the Flow. The fabric of dr. Sybling’s reality had to be completely altered. This would take longer than simply taking senses away from gullible people.

Pedro closed his eyes, while dr. Sybling’s eyes waited for salvation. For the rest of the group it was a strange sight through the openings the orange curtains of flames allowed.

Another icy, cutting wind rushed by the group, to let them know the Kid was never far away, even if he wasn’t physically present. The constant winds, that had plagued the area since the night on the cliff, made relentless sounds in the mountains and around the mansion.

The Runners were carrying every weapon they had gotten their hands on recently, in case he would come back.

The thing was, nobody knew where he was, but they were almost certain he wouldn’t be waiting for them in the lake house.

Why would he stay there after having been given the gift of life? His body was no longer a cage, because of the heartbeat Marith had donated. He was the ultimate Runner once more.

He would, at the very least, test out his new abilities, but it was much more likely he was creating havoc and looking for ways to get to the Clock in the Sky somewhere right now.

The Kid could not create. He could only take. He could not add, just deduct, and that was eating away at him. His entire existence he hadn’t been loved or accepted and the deceit of his parents had culminated into his malice.

He was nature, just like trees, birds and strawberries. He was a necessary evil, that kept some kind of mysterious balance in the world, that nobody wanted to acknowledge. He was the fire Giant Sequoia tree forests required to stay healthy, he was the lava that would eventually make the soil fertile and he was the war that brought peace. They needed him like they needed oxygen, but for some reason there was so much suffering involved he had to be fought.

His pain continued to hurt Marith, even though she resisted those emotions aggressively. She couldn’t even imagine how alone and left out he must have felt for thousands of years.

The moment dr. Sybling locked eyes with Marith for the first time in both of their lives she felt how a tear froze on her cheek.

After the cremation the group moved slowly back to the clinic. They let the pyre smoulder. The Runners would later put the ashes in an urn that was sent to dr. Sybling by the African Chain, after Meriyem had asked them to.

Dark thoughts crossed Marith’s mind as she joined the group downhill, which they usually did when her mind wasn’t specifically occupied otherwise. Weddings and funerals weren’t all that different, were they? Both required neat clothing, bot involved lots and lots of flowers, emotions were flying through the air, ready to be caught, and speeches were given at either occasion.

In a way a funeral was a reversed wedding. What if some of the traditions that specifically belonged to weddings could be accepted during funerals? One of the descendants of the deceased would toss a bundle of flowers over his or her shoulder and the first one to catch it would be the first one to die.

Before she could smirk to herself about her eerie imagination she realized she would probably be the one holding the bouquet. She quickly tightened the belt of her coat and pulled her scarf over her mouth.

The group parted on the hospital’s parking lot. Keymaker went into the garage were the ambulances were parked to descend into the Corridors. Dr. Sybling went back to her office in the clinic, still staring around in amazement. She had been able to see through Iris for most of her life, but the reality dogs registered was arguably different from the way humans see the world. Sophie guided her inside. The psychiatrist appeared to be somewhat wobbly, getting adjusted to seeing the world from her own perspective.

Lucille and Pavan were going to lunch in Sweet Lake. Jonathan would drive them and Amber back to town.

Lisa would go and take William home. They had some catching up to do.

The rest of the group fell apart in little groups as well. Some of the Runners would go training in the mountains. Most Prophets had deep and concentrated contemplation ahead of them as more visions were expected to find their way into their minds. The majority of Mages would go home to practice their talents by themselves or to catch up with housework and chores, like regular human beings did.

Certain questions had been plaguing Marith’s mind recently and she hadn’t been in the position to ask about them sooner, with her father almost committing suicide in the lake and Samuel kidnapping Etienne and all.

Visiting hour had officially passed, but Marith assumed nobody would protest if she would sneak in to visit her father, after the funeral of everybody’s favourite dog.

She soon found herself sitting on a cold hard chair at the little square table in her father’s room. Gene joined her with a glass of water.

“Dad, if I would ask you something difficult, would you answer me honestly?”

“Sure.”

Marith didn’t fail to notice how his mouth said ‘yes, of course’ and his eyes said ‘that depends on what you’re going to inquire about’.

“Did granddad ever talk about me?” She dove right in.

Gene sighed and eyed her purposefully before he said anything. “I guess you are aware by now that he wasn’t an actual grandparent?”

She nodded, with questioning eyes.

“Yeah, he spoke about you,” Gene started, after some hesitation. “He said you were fragile... in a good way,” her father assured her.

Marith wasn’t sure there was a good way to be fragile, but she kept listening.

“You need to understand that these are not matters that were usually discussed in our family. He told me that you had a sparkle and that you would amount to greatness, with the right motivation. Of course, I always assumed he had hinted at a career in music or academic success. Lately I’ve been realizing he had predicted an entirely different path for you.”

Gene put his left hand on her right arm to let her know it would be alright. Marith hated that, to be touched unprepared and for no reason, especially by one of her parents.

She wished her grandfather was still around. He was the mentor she could use right now.

“He died here, in this hospital,” Gene continued.

“I remember,” Marith nodded. “Was there a specific reason?”

“No,” her father shook his head. “His time had come. You guys will suffer from old age as well... at some point.” He smiled wryly.

Marith didn’t respond. Was he jealous?

“Dr. Sybling was there for him and some of the remaining Elders were as well. Of course, the doctor didn’t work here as a psychiatrist yet, but she was already in the area,” her father droned on, making idle conversation.

He told her all about how he and her mother moved into the lake house with their young family, leaving their first house in Sound Lake behind. Marith heard him out, but actually wanted to know something else.

“Do you happen to know if he had any diaries or logs of his life, his visions...?” Her voice trailed off.

Gene shook his head. “We didn’t find anything... of the sorts after we cleaned out the house.”

Marith knew he had wanted to use the word ‘compromising’, but didn’t.

“I guess he hadn’t been the type for writing down his personal thoughts.” Marith nodded, while fumbling with the opened zipper of her coat.

He swallowed and was overthinking something. “Of course there is the safe behind the wall panelling in my old study upstairs… that we’ve never been able to open.”

Marith’s eyes lit up. She searched his face for more information.

He shrugged the slightest of shrugs. “Maybe now is the time?” He sounded almost apologetically as he spoke. “He left the keys to the save to William’s dad in his will. He is the only one that can open it.”

“I will remember to ask Will about that.” She knew her father had always known about their magic parallel world, but he had never been pulled into it like the Pupils had been.

He had never dabbled in it, he had let it rest. Maybe he had been scared of what he would find if he poked around too much? Maybe he felt left out and had bitterly decided he wanted nothing to do with it anyway?

“What about his wife?” She looked up at her father. Their eyes met again. He knew that she knew and she knew that he knew as well.

“He loved her very much,” Gene paused to swallow, “just not in that way. She was human, so she died after eighty-something years. I’ve never met her. He didn’t start his relationship with the Mage from the other Chain, until much later,” he assured her.

Marith nodded, thinking about how painful that marriage must have been, especially for his wife. She hadn’t lived long enough for a do-over, but he had. She must have known during their time together that there was something different about his sexuality.

At Nick’s house a group of people was working on Christmas decorations. As with most of Nick’s personnel nobody really knew where they came from or where they would return to, just that they would be there, every week, month or year, depending on the job.

One thing was for certain, when they were done the place was transformed into a fairy tale. In the hallway Marith was met with the most humongous pine tree she had ever seen. It was ornamented with simple, yellow lights and red chequered bows.

Every room was filled with the smell of conifer garlands, sticks of cinnamon and stewed pears. It reminded her of a Christmas she had never been allowed to experience.

The house was covered in holly, mistletoe and glittery bows. Burning wood was crackling in the fireplaces, warming up the mansion, while outside the temperatures had dropped well below zero.

The Kid’s icy winter winds reminded Marith of when Lieke and she were young. When their parents were still together and the holidays were a simulation of happiness.

She hadn’t been part of any Christmas celebration in a long time, apart from a recital or two in Amsterdam around the Holidays.

Her mother had been in the habit of nuking every holiday by walking out and leaving the house if she felt ever so slightly disrespected. Marith always thought how funny it was that people who have the least respect for others demand to receive the most of it.

Their mother genuinely acted like she had been bullied or harassed by her family, even though she had been an abusive and threatening wife and mother. Tensions like that would be magnified during the holidays.

From the tender age of eight Marith had never felt much for celebrating anything. It was too stressful. Where was the fun in it? To Marith it was a celebration to skip it, which hadn’t been really possible until her mother had left for Norway, taking Lieke hostage.

Marith petted Olive, hung up her coat, kicked off her boots and went to look for Nick. She found him in the first place she looked.

Nick sat behind his humongous mahogany desk in the study, with a freshly shaved face, wearing a baby blue, knitted sweater, that complemented his bright eyes in all the right ways.

“How are ya?” He asked, moving stacks of paper around. Since moving in with him Marith had often wondered if he ever did anything else than that.

“Good, good… well, you know, decent. I’m still functioning, not like an adult, but I still call it functioning.”

“I feel that,” he answered with a sigh.

“Sooo, my dad just told me you agreed to let Lieke cook Christmas dinner to us?”

“For us...”

“Oh no, it’s to us,” Marith shared with big, telling eyes.

“You’re clearly hinting at something. What is it?”

“Bricks are easier to digest than Lieke’s food. Why do you think I’ve done practically all the cooking up until now?” It was culinary abuse, plain and simple.

“Oh,” he hesitated. “She was disappointed about spending Thanksgiving in the clinic. She wanted to celebrate the fact that your father gets to come home for Christmas by cooking. I already said she could do it. There is not much we can do at this point, I guess.”

“I know,” Marith sighed. “Maybe we can steer her away from the traditional dishes and keep it simple. Salads and stuff. Not much that can go wrong there.”

Nick nodded.

“Also, I don’t want to be that person, but I think we shouldn’t have alcohol during Christmas.”

“Why not?” Nick frowned.

“Well, because my dad is released during the holidays.”

“Right,” he quickly answered, realizing an alcohol-free Christmas would be best that year. “I am very happy for you guys. He is welcome to stay here.” He gestured at the ceiling, indicating the spare bedrooms.

“Thanks, I will tell him, but he might want to spend his time with Vanessa though.”

“Of course.”

“I will leave you to whatever this is,” Marith said, gesturing at the desk, covered in balance sheets, government letters, screens, laptops and wires.

“Hell is what it is,” Nick muttered, going back to work.

Marith wandered back into the tree-filled hallway so that Nick could go back to his repositioning of papers. She bend over to pull Olive away from the paper bags she had placed on the floor outside the cloakroom earlier.

The dog followed her closely as she walked towards the kitchen.

No amount of willpower had helped Marith to successfully replicate the roze koeken, mergpijpjes or speculaasbrokken she regularly ate in the Netherlands, so she had caved into her desire for fat and sugar and was carrying three bags filled with patisserie from the Sweet Tooth into the kitchen.

Amber had known the food was mostly just for the Mage - maybe some of it would be eaten by Nick and Lieke, but only if they were quick and very, very lucky – and she had fully understood. Marith was still recovering, physically and mentally. Her batteries weren’t charged yet. There was an emptiness within her that could only be filled by time and sustenance, but they only had access to one of the two.

It was exactly how she and Kyle had been feeling after their special dreams lately. They were so drained no amount of food really caused them to gain weight either. Between school, work and Pupil related duties they had mostly been eating and sleeping.

Lieke was sitting at the kitchen table. She had positioned herself and her electronics in such a way that if she looked up from her homework she would look out over the white plane of snow that led into the wilderness behind the mansion.

Marith quietly shoved the contents of the bags into one of the refrigerators. When she was done she lifted a carton of milk from the door to make hot chocolate with the lollipops she had just bought. Lieke looked up with a frown as she heard her sister struggle to get a saucepan out of a drawer filled with pans.

“Whatever you’re making I want it,” Lieke said behind her.

“Sure,” Marith answered, fishing two mugs from one of the cupboards.

A few minutes later she set a hot mug of milk, containing the lollipop upside down, melting under the surface, on the kitchen table with a coaster. She stirred it a little, since Lieke was ignoring her and the mug.

Then she walked back to take a seat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter. She carefully turned around on it, balancing the hot mug, to face her little sister.

She didn’t want to be too weird about was she was going to say, so she just did it without giving it another thought.

“Hey, have you been talking to Samuel lately?” She heard herself ask.

“Who?” Lieke asked, barely looking up from the screens in front of her.

“The guy that’s renting the lake house.”

“No,” Lieke answered.

“Maybe you should stay clear of him for a while,” Marith began hesitantly. She didn’t like to be told what to do in life and she didn’t want to tell others what to do either, but she also felt it was her obligation to keep Lieke away from Satan’s sidekick.

“No, problem. That guy was such a leipo anyway,” Lieke mumbled, engrossed in something that was happening on one of the three screens in front of her.

Marith stirred the wooden stick through the hot milk in her mug some more, before taking another sip. She watched how the chocolate melted into strings, before colouring the milk deep brown.

“Marith,” Lieke suddenly spoke, tearing her eyes away from a tablet.

“Yes?” Marith wondered.

“What is going on?”

“What do you mean?” Marith asked as sweetly and innocently as possible.

“Well, you’re out all the time, but you don’t really have any music students… right?”

Marith often wondered if Lieke was consciously roasting her or if this was just her way of talking. The oldest sister nodded reluctantly and found herself wandering to the kitchen table. She sat down in front of Lieke, who, surprisingly enough, closed her laptop and locked the screens of her smartphone and tablet.

“What are you doing then? You’re too old to be aimlessly hanging around a mall, but you go to your friends like every other day.”

“Thanks,” Marith answered dryly.

“No, but seriously,” Lieke pushed, looking her sister straight in the eye. “Something is up with you guys. Something is up with this town.”

Marith knew she couldn’t keep avoiding this conversation. She eventually had to explain certain things to both Nick and Lieke. Why not start with her sister today?

“You’re right,” she answered. “You know about the three lakes of this area, right?”

“Yes, obviously.”

“There are more of such lakes around the planet,” Marith began. “The six new… eh, people that arrived lately, that you may have seen around, are from around those lakes.”

“That’s not strange at all,” Lieke remarked sarcastically.

“The asteroids that formed those lakes, thousands of years ago, brought certain elements to Earth that affect some people, but not others,” Marith struggled on, explaining things to the best of her abilities. “We appear to be the most affected ones.”

“Affected in what way?” Lieke frowned, playing with the cables running from her laptop to a power strip.

“We can see and sometimes do more than others.”

Lieke nodded and looked up at Marith. “Like when we were young and you had those nightmares, but you sometimes had them during the day as well? And then sometimes they came true?”

“Yes,” Marith answered surprised. “I didn’t realize you could remember that,” she continued, somewhat ashamed.

“Sort of,” Lieke said with a shrug. “They freaked me out a little, but then they suddenly stopped.”

“I learned how to block them, so to speak, but then the train accident happened and I returned here…”

“I see,” Lieke commented.

“Let’s say that every human is running in a giant, plastic hamster ball… their entire life,” Marith started to explain.

“Sure.”

“Regular hamster balls have only one opening so the hamster can go in and out, right?”

Lieke nodded.

“Well, the hamster balls that humans are in have an endless amounts of those little doors, but they can’t see them or use them. Me and my friends can see both the ball and several of those doors.”

“And one of those doors is like dying?”

“Yes, one of those doors resembles coming into this life and stepping out of it at some point.”

Marith was met with a frowning face that, to her relief, slowly started to understand a little bit more.

“So,” Marith continued, searching for words, “everything is made of tiny particles, right?”

“Like atoms?” Lieke wondered.

“Yes, like atoms,” Marith answered elated. Her sister was understanding more of it than she would have expected. “Some of us can see the course segments of those particles take, others can use them to influence the… eh, fabric of this reality to some extent. Are you still following?”

Lieke nodded again. “And Samuel has something to do with this then?”

“Samuel has everything to do with this,” Marith said, not really wanting to go into it any further, but also not wanting to lie.

“Okay,” Lieke answered. “But he’s not one of you, right? He’s much too… I don’t know… creepy, I guess, for that.”

Marith nodded again, with a wry smile this time. “You could not be more right.”

“I notice things.” Lieke’s lips formed a thin line that curled painfully at the ends.

“I know you do,” Marith said patiently.

“Me sleepwalking into the lake… and then the others…”

“Yeah, I am afraid Samuel was responsible for that.”

“And the monster on the jetty? The one that was watching me that night?”

“Already a goner… we send it back to its maker,” Marith said resolutely. “Only Samuel is left.”

“Are you, like… fighting him?”

“In a way. Yes.”

“Did he do the train crash in Leiden as well?” Lieke asked, with sudden tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I am afraid so.”

“And Dad?”

“Yes,” Marith answered.

“Will you take care of it?”

“I promise you that we will do everything within out power to take care of it.”

“Thank you,” Lieke almost whispered, with trembling lips. She didn’t look at her sister. She was still fumbling with the cables that ran in bundles over the wooden table top.

Marith stood up, walked around the kitchen table and hugged her little sister. The Pupils were most affected by the elements and the Kid, but that didn’t mean others were not affected.

Marith felt his evil again and she couldn’t believe she had stripped him of his only weakness, his main limitation. She wanted to slap herself, but she also knew there hadn’t really been a choice that night, a few nights earlier.

Like most dandelion children Lieke recovered swiftly from this information that she had actually known to be the truth all along. While Lieke listed all the ways in which Sweet Lake sucked on genitals, and other body parts that slightly bothered Marith, she listened patiently, so the Runners of the Chain could ransack the lake house, which, they had noticed, had been empty since, what they now referred to as, the ‘cliff incident’.

Two days before Marith had found the strength to leave her bed Samuel had passionately kissed his nymphs goodbye. He had left them with all the evil seed they needed, to infect the area. Their turn to watch the family business had come.

The Kid, harbouring a distinct hatred for anything warm or joyous, was suffocating now that the Holidays were arriving. He had decided to test out his rebooted heart and make the run of a lifetime.

Despite his fast wealth he hadn’t bothered to arrange false papers. That would have involved leaving the tri-lake area and drive, or run, to a city and he had been too busy spreading misery around his tomb.

He couldn’t legally leave the country now, but luckily he didn’t have to. He could just run away from it.

He quickly found out that he rarely felt tired or out of breath with his new heart. If he did he simply slowed down and enjoyed the scenery. He never truly halted completely.

He was so fast everything around him slowed down. He could easily evade human activity.

He got chased by bears and ran with wolves. He even stumbled upon a snow leopard and a polar bear or two, but he would go unnoticed to humans, until the very last moments of his trip.

His feet landed on sand, pebbles, rocks, snow, clay and swampy terrains, only to be replaced by snow and rocks again. Every footstep was as hollow as his chest, as empty as his soul, as ominous as his intentions.

He thought of Marith, her beauty, her ingenuity, her fire and how he could use her at his side. She had rejected him, given him new life and then she had betrayed him. He could work with that attitude.

The face of a thousand nightmares found himself running through Russia by the time the Pupils mourned around the pyre.

He admired Siberia. It was like a moonscape, an alien surface. Yellowstone, but even colder. He didn’t mind the cold. He was built for it.

He briefly contemplated running by the Mage whose mind had birthed Harold, but he knew the Pupils better than that. That elitist snowflake squad surely had the guy surrounded by armed Runners, since his own prison break.

He kept running. Running through thick primeval forests, over endless icy plains, between the highest mountains and over outstretched fields of greenery.

He ran and ran and ran, his legs racing like the paws of a hamster in a wheel. The only difference was that his legs would never get tired.

His lungs were never out of breath, his muscles didn’t grow stiff, his mind, well, he had lost his mind a long time ago, but he did have the willpower to continue and there was no wear or tear on his joints. He was running on magic.

He was born this way and he would never, ever die. They could put him away, for sure, but he was highly unkillable, and, with the weapon he was retrieving from those bloody Normans, they were not likely going to be successful in locking him up again.

He felt free. He had never been allowed to make his own choices or his own mistakes. There had always been his parents, First Oracle and First Watchmaker, hovering over him, remembering him of his duties, and when he had put that torture to an end they put him in the Empty. If only Marith wasn’t so mad at him she might actually be able to relate to him.