Kelia was kneeling on Latem’s back, his broken arm was splayed out on the ground at an angle that made me violently cringe.

Hana was yelling, distantly. The blood in my ears prevented me from hearing her clearly. I had almost just died. That man, that man right there, had almost just killed me. I stumbled back and Hana caught sight of me, the yelling having stopped.

I fell onto the ground. I would have been dead if Kelia wasn’t here. The thought snuck in unbidden and lingered around, like a grimy, unwelcome loiterer.

Someone was at my side. They were talking to me, saying something I couldn’t understand. I tried to listen in but the words were just not intelligible.

I had almost just died. That’s how easy it was to kill me. A single knife and that would have been it. If Kelia hadn’t been here… And yet Giaos thinks I’m the one to save the whole world? It was ludicrous. This was all beyond insane.

“Griffin. Are you okay? Griffin!” Hana’s voice was suddenly coming through. I think I nodded but I wasn’t sure. She seemed to calm down a little. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head no.

We both turned to look at Kelia, who was still holding a knife to Latem’s throat. She appeared to be saying something to him but I don’t think either of us could make it out.

Hana called out to her. “Griffin is okay!” I’m not certain she heard because she made no move, still whispering something to Latem.

I tried to get up and move but my legs felt too weak to carry me. “Can you help me up?” I asked Hana. She obliged me. Her grip was surprisingly strong and I was a bit taken aback by how easily she pulled me to my feet. She put my arm around her shoulder and we slowly made our way over to the two.

Kelia looked like she was about to say something else to Latem but stopped herself, glancing up at me.

“Is anyone else in the house?” I asked, worried.

“He says it's empty.”

Latem’s face was contorted in pain and fear. Kelia’s newly found knife was pressed so firmly against his throat I was afraid that if he breathed he would slit his own throat.

“Is he lying?”

She paused. “No.”

Hana spoke up. “People can probably see us from the street.” Her voice shook a little, as shocked by the turn of events as I was, or, at least close enough. She fidgeted awkwardly as she spoke.

Kelia nodded and removed the knife from Latem’s throat only to start dragging him inside by the collar of his coat. He started yelling in pain but that only made her drag harder and faster. Hana, rather worriedly, ran after them, clearly out of her element. I was no better, heart still racing. What in the fuck were we supposed to be doing here?

I closed the door behind me. Latem was now on his back, knife once again pressed to his throat. Kelia sat on his chest and had a darkness in her expression that told me more than words could ever describe.

I felt a distinct burst of courage. Maybe it was the adrenaline from almost being killed or maybe it was Giaos fucking with me again. “Why did Percival send us to you?”

“Percival?” His tone had definitely shifted. It sounded almost pathetic, like a child’s.

“Percival. The man behind the murder of Zeckmas. He sent us here to talk to you. What do you know?” I said gruffly.

“I don’t know this Percival guy. All I know is that I used to work for Zeckmas’s secret network, l'Assemblée.” He was looking into my eyes, searching to see if this information was what I wanted to hear. Good. That meant he was scared of dying. Serves him right. He was shaking visibly, probably from the shock of having his arm broken.

“Go on.” Kelia ordered.

“Our goal was to make a true hero, one that could fulfill the prophecy. Somehow, they knew you were coming. I don’t know how they got that information but they did and they didn’t think you would be strong enough.”

“Is that why you just tried to kill me right now?”

His words were running together faster now, a stream of sounds. “You have to understand, this monster out there is strong enough that even the gods are worried. We couldn’t leave this up to chance.”

Hana jumped in. “Did you end up creating your ‘true hero’.”

Latem’s eyes shifted from Hana to me. “No, instead we made a monster. We had this… this… I don’t know, a dark magic corpse or something. We used it on one of our test subjects and she became pregnant with a monster. I never saw it. The base was raided by an assassin before she could give birth and she was taken from us.”

A dark magic corpse? Where had I seen that? Suddenly, the memories of my time in the library came to me.

“Shit! The monster you’re talking about is the same one Percival had! It was him.” I said.

Hana grabbed me by the arm. “What are you talking about?”

“The monster I told you about at the library, the one Percival had with him? It was this big, creepy thing. Long limbs, and like three or four rows of teeth. No eyes either. That was the thing that attacked us. It was resistant or immune to magic. Anything Giaos did to it, it just shrugged off.”

Hana swore under her breath. “So you were literally trying to give birth to some hero.”

He nodded, swallowing awkwardly around the knife. He avoided looking at Kelia. “Yes, that was the operation. Create a hero by whatever means necessary.”

“But you created a monster instead.” Kelia said, voice dangerously low.

He turned his head fully away, like a child that was scolded.

Kelia’s jaw was clenched as she spoke. “Is there any information on this monster?”

“At our old base, maybe. We stored all the project notes there. It should be mostly abandoned. Maybe a few guards are still keeping watch.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

He told us, giving lengthy directions. Surprisingly, it was near the central castle, a place I had only seen from a distance but it made sense since Zeckmas had been close to the top of the hierarchy in this city. Maybe he pulled a few strings.

We all sat in silence for a moment once he was done telling us everything. This was quickly becoming a quest, rather than something more straightforward. Who knew how deep this ran but the fact that it was so close to the castle and involved the Arch-High Mage was not a good sign.

“What do we do now?” Hana asked.

“Go outside. I'll finish up here.” Kelia ordered.

I was suspicious of her, especially now that I had a more clear head to analyze the weird interaction she had with him just after she had broken his arm. They were clearly exchanging some kind of information or maybe threats or something. Whatever it was, I couldn’t tell but perhaps Kelia had good reason to keep it under wraps.

I reopened the door and Hana followed me. We closed it and I scanned the street, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It was relatively deserted, only an old lady walking a very fluffy dog to be seen.

“Well, that was scary,” I said, after a moment of standing around.

“For you.”

“What are you talking about? You were just as scared as me.”

“No!” She turned to me slightly aggressively. “I was worried, not scared.”

Her intensity was so sudden, so lively and the situation so odd that I couldn’t help but laugh.

She punched me in the shoulder.

“I shouldn’t have been worried about you. She spun around, back to me, and pretended to investigate something important. I scratched the back of my head idly, thinking, just for a moment, amidst the craziness of everything that had just happened, that had happened over these past few days, that things were okay.

A scream sounded from inside and then a vicious gurgle. I don’t remember what followed exactly except that I burst through the door, almost tripping myself.

Kelia was standing above the now dead Latem, his throat sporting a terribly deep gash that was spewing blood like a geyser.

“Kelia!” Hana screamed.

She didn’t even look at us as she walked past. A brief “let’s go” was all we got.

I’m sure my mouth was gaping as much as Hana’s, brain unable to process what was going on. Did Kelia really just kill him? Something was so so wrong.

We had probably stood there for a while before simultaneously deciding to chase after Kelia but she was not in the mood to speak to either of us and no matter how much we tried to get her to speak, she refused.

By the end of it, we were walking home in an extremely tense silence, one that must have been palpable for onlookers. Hana looked thoroughly spooked. Neither of us had realized that Kelia had it in her to kill someone in the cold blood but maybe it was just because we didn’t know her.

Each death I had witnessed felt different. The couple’s death was one that was heavily intertwined with my own fear of dying, Tobflin’s was one that was almost entirely shocking, Zeckmas’s was one of abject horror, and this one felt altogether dirty, like blood that wouldn’t wash off. While the man had tried to kill me prior, the fact that Kelia had no problem murdering a defenseless man was perhaps the most disturbing piece.

By the time we got back to the hotel, Kelia had retired to her room so it was just Hana and I in our room. The sun was still out, perhaps nearing the start of the evening. We were both in shock and just found something, anything to do to keep busy, or at least the pretense of it. Hana told me she was going to take a bath and I kept idly flipping through some book she had brought, stuck in my thoughts.

Just who exactly was Kelia? Was this world one in which murder was commonplace?

I tried to distract myself by setting the book down, a book whose title I couldn’t even remember, and picked up the magic training toy.

My magic was surprisingly easy to channel, as if my fear and uncertainty were to working to shape it, to give body and consistency to it. I felt the now-familiar sense of power coursing through me. It flowed through my limbs and into my thumb, lighting up the rune.

It almost surprised me by how quick it was, like a snap of my fingers.

A faint blue glow lit up my shirt. I was doing magic! I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of determination and satisfaction at my success.

It was wild to think that a week ago I had just been a nerd confined to my room and the traditional laws of physics. Here I was doing legitimate magic, not the stuff at kids’ shows. I didn’t even know what the possibilities were. Would I be able to summon water dragons or a waterspout?

I spent the next hour playing with the toy. By the end of it, I was able to push the first button down with my magic control.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, an hour of intense concentration did take quite a bit out of me. It was an odd feeling because I was physically exhausted when I had done nothing to really exert myself. I was so tired, in fact, that I only barely remembered Hana entering the room before I had fallen asleep.

That night, I dreamed of faceless monsters and distant women, chanting my name as my entrails were slowly pulled outside my body.