After Isaac’s trial by fire, Gill and Aida collaborated to calm down the flustered outpatient and get him to tell them where he lived. A quick draw of a transportation sigil on the door and a memory wipe spell later, Mr. Frogman was on his way.

An overly excited Gill immediately took Zeke and Ugo in his massive, flappy arms and onto the grand tour of his wintry palace.

Gill started with the kitchen, which Zeke suspected must’ve been his favorite place in the lodge. It was big and any chef’s dream kitchen with a vintage touch. State-of-the-art appliances and a massive brick stove in the wall. The island countertop was made of solid walnut, and the oak cabinets and stools shone with a matte poly finish.

Many of Gill’s multispecies servants were scrambling the area with great sync. Neither of them bumped into each other as they were putting together dinner for the evening. It looked less like a home kitchen and more like a kitchen for a high-profile restaurant in the underworld.

Gill pointed at a freckled-faced, finely dressed woman who stood in the center intently watching the others move. “Sylvie is my main chef, and she is in charge of meals.”

The freckled-faced beauty turned to them and gave them a smile before whipping over to a three-eyed girl for cutting onions the wrong way.

“With her at the helm, there’s nothing to worry about. You are in for a bloody good threat, fellas.”

“How did you get all these creatures to work for you?” Ugo asked.

Gill gave him a pat on the back. “I just asked them to, and they accepted the deal.”

“Like a contract?” Zeke mentioned, thinking back to Violet’s final warning.

Gill’s chubby cheeks pushed up into his eyelids as he cocked a great smile. “Why, how else would they know their rights without a proper contract? Workers need to be protected, Azaekias.”

“It’s pronounced—”

“Let’s go somewhere else!” Gill declared and waddled off.

Next was the luxurious living room and the biggest flat-screen TV Zeke had ever seen in his life. It seemed distasteful how much space it took up on the wall, like a movie theater. The furniture looked more expensive than his entire home back at Winterberry.

There was a slender, dainty woman in the room tidying the place with a feather duster. The nonhuman wore a medieval maid’s outfit, had platinum blond hair, was no taller than 5 feet, and had no pupils in her eyes, just her white scleras. She stopped cleaning to greet the boys with a curtsy.

“This beautiful wonder here is Amice. She is the head of the maids. She’s in charge of keeping this place clean and your laundry.”

Zeke and Ugo waved at her.

“She’s a sylph. There aren’t many of her kind around, and they are the closest things to seeing a fairy up close for people like us.”

Amice stepped back, agitated, and looked up at them with a fearful look.

“No one will ask you to show your wings, Amice. It’s okay. You can get back to work, alright, Luv?”

She nodded, still noticeably deterred but forced a smile and returned to her duties.

Gill whispered to the brothers, “Sylphs are very shy about their wings, especially around strangers because they used to be hunted for them.”

Zeke pondered what just happened, but a new question popped up in his head, making him blurt out, “Where do you get the money for all this?”

Gill chuckled and brushed his hair back. “Azaekias, as a Healer, money shouldn’t be an issue.”

Zeke sighed, giving up on correcting the pronunciation, and asked another question, “So what about your parents? How do you keep them in the dark about this?”

“No need to,” Gill responded casually. “Dad’s a dead bloke, and my mum is a wretched whore whose hypocritical family enjoyed chastising me like it was their hobby. Some of us have specialties that aren’t so easy to hide. Certain specialties can lead to you having a bible thrown at your face or being doused with holy water.”

Zeke realized that someone labeled the Demonologist must’ve had it rough.

“That sucks, man,” Ugo said.

Gill nodded with a bittersweet smile on his face like a survivor who can look back at the worst moments of their life and laugh about them but also miss the struggles. He started moving again, and the brothers followed.

As if the living room wasn’t enough. There were also multiple media rooms and sitting rooms, each with stone fireplaces. A game room in the basement, banquettes, a dining room that would bring Zeke’s mother to tears, and a narrow wine cellar labyrinth one could spend an afternoon going through in its entirety.

By the time the tour ended, dinner was ready. Gill’s servants prepared an elite-class meal consisting of several dishes for the party, Violet didn’t bother to show, and neither did Isaac (he was fasting, and it was probably for the best).

It was a buffet of delicacies from all over the world, making sure to tend to each of the Healers’ ethnic backgrounds, and dishes from otherworldly Realms—Dragon Scale Soup, Fried Phoenix Legs, Harpy Meatloaf, and so on.

Shocking to no one, Zeke stuck to the foods he knew.

The talk at the table was lively, with the mess of different personalities clashing with one another at the table. Even though Zeke had only met these people today, he felt a solid connection to them as if he had already known them all his life.

Ugo had no problem taking part in the dinner table conversation that ranged from celebrity scandals to the weirdest food combinations ever conceived. He blended in as smoothly as chocolate and peanut butter.

Zeke heard sniffing.

He turned to his side and found the Geneticist seated next to him, leaning towards his shoulder with her nose turned up. Once their eyes met, she froze like a puppy peeing on the carpet caught in the act by its owner.

Aida flashed a smile, beautifying her already stunning oriental features even further, and then she pulled back a bit. “I was just…” she started, unable to hide the chagrin in her voice.

At this point, Zeke had already met so many weird people doing weird things he remained unfazed. “It must be my new perfume,” he said with a chuckle, impressed with his attempt at a joke.

And an even bigger surprise followed; Aida chuckled along and tucked her caramel brown hair behind her ear. She had extremely pale skin, a small oval face with bangs covering her forehead, and a feral intensity in her dark eyes despite the bubbly smile on her pink lips. “Our numbers are closest to each other. “We gotta stick together,” she said, then let out a hyena-like snicker.

Zeke looked around and realized that the seats were arranged in order. Aida was the Ninth-Born, he recalled, right before him.

Aida grabbed her cup and took a sip of what looked like orange juice to Zeke, but he wasn’t so sure. “I’m glad that Violet decided to not show up,” she said, smacking her lips. “She’s just the worst. Don’t you think?”

The question had Zeke staring back in silence, watching her chug the rest of the drink down.

Aida’s eyes widened for a moment. “Oh wait, you’re friends with her, right?”

“We’ve known each other since the first grade.”

The Asian Healer curled her lip to the side, looking like a judge hearing a terrible testimony. “She kills angels.”

“Wait, how do you know—?”

“She has admitted it to us on several occasions. That monster is shameless.”

It was the signal for Zeke to play devil’s advocate, and he had all his notes memorized. “Don’t be so quick to judge. There is a reason, okay?” he said as if he had rehearsed. “All angels aren’t good. One cursed my mother, and another tried to kill my friends and me.”Zeke felt bad about badmouthing Nananiel, who was backed into a corner by higher-ups, but he needed all the ammunition he could gather to support his case.

“So the solution to that is to just kill them all? Is that it?”

Zeke rose to his feet in an instant silencing the table conversation. He kept his eyes down on his plate of Pescado Frito, and as soon as he touched it, a suited zombie appeared and took it away for him.

“Please, Azaekias!” Gill shouted. “Here, you don’t have to work for anything! Relaaax!”

Without giving Aida one last look, he announced his departure and went straight to his room.

Aida simply didn’t understand what Violet must’ve gone through for her to resort to such extremes, but that’s okay. He will save her and will stop her. Then, all this mess can be forgotten.

Zeke spent the rest of the evening studying through the handful of books he brought from the Infirmary’s Library. The chapter he stopped on about demonology was MAJOR DEMONS.

He doused off in the king-sized bed with the plaid fleece sheet set and a tall footboard.

###

Zeke stood in the sparkling lake and could see the beautifully designed white cathedral in the distance. There was a door right in front of him, attached to nothing. It was a meaty door with jagged mouths crisscrossed across and wasn’t an object he had never seen before.

Isaac Noble threw the entire universe into chaos, all to get him to open one damn door. This damn door. Zeke observed it without moving a muscle.

“How often do you dream about this place?” a voice from behind said

Zeke turned on his heels and found AJ wearing her usual letter jacket and jeans. His expression twisted with confusion.

“It’s really me, by the way,” AJ said in a tone like a hostage negotiator. “Not some dreamed-up version. Yes, you are, dreaming, but this is very much real.”

“What?”

“Nananiel and Naomi transferred some of their Mana into me and are helping maintain this dreamwalk spell.” She waded closer to Zeke. “Since the minds of Tainted Generation members are mostly fortified against supernatural forces. Nananiel explained that it would be much easier for me to enter your mind not only because I am human, but you subconsciously trust me more, on a spiritual level or something like that.”

“Kind of like an immune system. My soul doesn’t see you as a threat, so it doesn’t attack.”

AJ smiled and blushed slightly. “Yeah.” She looked down at the water for a while and then dramatically shifted her expression. Now with a grim look, she fixed on Zeke and said, “Nananiel said that there’s a Cherub in Heaven that has visions about the future. He received information from a contact that she recently got a vision concerning the Tainted Generation.”

Zeke felt the uncomfortable cold air blow onto the inner walls of his stomach as he braced for the worse.

After the dramatic pause, AJ continued, “One of you is going to die. Very soon.”

“What?”

“Killed by another member of the Tainted Generation.”

Zeke’s jaw dropped, and the world began to spin for him as if he had just reached the vertical loop section on a rollercoaster. “Who? Who is going to get killed? Who is the killer?”

“She never said. The vision was blurry. According to the hearsay, she felt that one member killed another, and the day of the happening is near.” AJ said. “Zeke. You need to come back!”

Zeke looked back at the tears welling in her eyes. She was shaking, which in turn made him shake, like a mirror effect. “Wait,” he quavered. “How accurate are these visions?”

“Nananiel said her visions have never been wrong. Sometimes they lack in detail, but they become true every time.”

“Maybe… there is a way to stop it from happening.”

“Zeke, you can’t change the future.”

The comment made Zeke think back to his scrimmage with Isaac. His deterministic views on life. Legacy. Predestination. Fate. Destiny. Everybody had a part to play, according to the Vicar, and if they stray away from it, they’ll end up way worse than they were supposed to.

There’s no way he could prove that lunatic right.

“Destiny isn’t set in stone, AJ,” Zeke said, clenching a fist. “I can find a way to stop it.”

“Zeke—”

“Right now, I am doing my best to get to know them. I must form some relationships before I start investigating. We are all in the same place at once. There is no better opportunity than this one to find out who are the other culprits who broke the Seal. I can’t just leave now. I’ll never get another chance like this.”

AJ crossed her arms, still shaking but with anger this time.

“I’ll be careful, like I said. But now that I know that someone will get murdered by one of us, I can’t just let it happen. I won’t.”

“What if Violet turns out to be the murderer?”

Zeke froze for just a moment. “That won’t happen.”

AJ held out her hand. “Give me your arm.”

Zeke raised a brow but did as so.

She clenched onto his wrist firmly and pulled out an archaic knife from her jacket.

“What’re you doing?” Zeke said, reasonably startled.

“I’m sorry. Nananield told me I have to do so to make sure you know this isn’t a dream.”

She cut the side of his arm.

Zeke sat up on his bed. Pleasantly well-rested. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept in a room he didn’t share with someone else but quickly became accustomed to it after getting a taste and now refused to go back to sharing.

Despite Violet’s warnings, Zeke had to admit that Gill’s hospitality was top-notch, and his colorful working staff of monsters was charming, accommodating, and speedy. He had no pride in what he had done the previous night, but curiosity got the best of him, and he pressed the call bell by his bedside—it made no noise, and yet, a suited lizard woman was by his door in less than a minute. After allowing the servant in, he asked for some tea, and the infusion was majestic.

Once Zeke was up on his feet, he did his morning stretches and stopped midway when he noticed the cut on the side of his left arm. It wasn’t too deep but fresh and still leaking blood.

He covered the wound with his hand and rushed to the spotless, chic bathroom. He found the medical kit in the cabinet and grabbed some gauze, and started to apply pressure. Only after he began to feel the sting of the wound. Fully aware he could just use magic to stop the bleeding, he found a strange solace in doing it the old-fashioned way.

So it wasn’t a dream. Somebody was going to commit murder.

He looked back at himself in the mirror and started going through the profiles of all the other Healers in his head for who would have the motive to kill.

One person gleamed in his mind’s eye and fit the bill. The same for whom was most likely to be killed. The thought made him apply way more pressure than was needed onto the wound, and the reflection that looked back at him had a hostile expression he didn’t recognize. The rumination brought visceral fear and anger from deep within him. The mission had changed.

No way he could let that happen.

Zeke got rid of the gauze, put everything back where it belonged, and had a shower. He returned to the bedroom with his towel on and noticed that his laundry hamper was empty, and a new basket of folded clothes was on his dresser.

Amice snuck into the room, got rid of his dirty laundry, and prepared new clothes for him without waking him up. If only his mother was that gentle. He thought back to all the times he was woken up to loud Colombian music in the morning. He examined the clothes in the basket, and it was snowboarding gear.

He shook off the confusion and proceeded to get dressed. He put on his blank long-sleeved shirt and wacky-patterned thermal pants for the day.

Then the LED — Ultra HD TV mounted on the wall entranced him to a halt on his way to the door. He grabbed the remote off the bedside and turned on the TV. It was twice the size of the one he and his stepbrother had in their bedroom. He nearly salivated at the thought of the games they could play on it.

A beautiful newscaster wearing a look of extreme worry appeared on the screen.

She gabbled with a stylish graphic of a microbe in a box at the upper right corner of the screen. There were blocky letters at the bottom of the screen in German. Unfortunately, the language wasn’t a part of Zeke’s toolset of knowledge.

A knock on the door pulled Zeke’s attention away from the TV.

The paunchy host opened the door and walked in, wearing a classy suit that Zeke could probably use as a parachute.

“How’d you sleep, mate?”

Zeke studied him, wondering if the Demonologist could have the motive for murder or be killed. But no, his current hunch still made more sense. “Yeah, fine, thanks for asking.”

Gill knocked on the wall. “Did I tell you that these walls are completely soundproof? Good use of drywall and material from the Elvenrealm.”

Zeke’s focus was on the TV. “Hey, Gill, do you know German?”

Gill stole a glance at the screen. “You mean, Swiss High German? Yes, but so can you in seconds; it’s just one spell away—“

“What’s she talking about?” Zeke interrupted and pointed at the TV.

Gill took another glance and dismissed it immediately. “Something about a new flu going around. It’s just another exaggerated public health scare to stir up the masses. It’s probably going to end up being nothing.”

Just before Zeke could press onto the matter any longer, shouting erupted from the corridors, and soon after, another character let themselves into the room.

Yaalon, holding a stuffed duffel bag, glared at the two after stepping in with a field of worry lines marked on his forehead. Lines so defined that they can be played like a guitar by running a finger up and down them.

“What are you two doing?” Yaalon asked, directing the question to both Zeke and Gill. “Look, I let this slide yesterday because Isaac ruined everything. It is my fault for not preparing for the unexpected with that lunatic.” He dropped the heavy duffel bag onto the floor and eyed Zeke as he said, “That’s for you.”

Zeke gave it one look and raised a brow. “What’s it for?”

As if he was an absent-minded tutee asking to repeat another simple explanation about a problem, Yaalon groaned loudly and stared with an annoyed look. “Did you not get the email I sent you?” He looked over at Gill. “You guys did forward it to him, right? I asked one of you to do that for me. Do you ever read my emails?”

“Of course not,” Gill responded dryly.

Yaalon facepalmed and slowly moved it down his face. “I thought it was weird that I haven’t seen a single person with a copy of the schedule printed out. Ezequias, come eat breakfast quickly and then get back here to dress up. We’re hitting the slopes.” Yaalon exited the room.

Once the delay for a reaction ended, Zeke pulled back and said, looking over at Gill. “Wait, what?”